
M 



)87(o. 



/ 







THE DEFENCE OF PETERSBURG. 



ADDRESS 



";Uj^-^ 



Capt. W. GORDON McCABE, 

(Formerly Adjutant of Pegram's Battalion of Artillekt, 
Third Corps, A. N. V.) 



BEFORE THE 



^irginia gibision of tl^t ^tm^ of ^otih/tn flirginm, 



At their ANNUAii Meeting, held in the Capitol at 
EiCHMOND, Va., November 1st, 1S7G. 



My only object is to transmit the truth, if possible, to posterity, and do justice to our 
brave soldiers. — Lee''>: Letter to Early, Xovember 22d, 1S65. 



RICHMOND, VA. : 

GEO. W. GARY, PRINTER AND BOOKBINDER. 

1876. 



Published by order of the Virginia Division of the Army of 

Northern Virginia. 

W. H. F. Lee, President. 

George L Christian, | Secretaries. 
Leroy S. Edwards, ) 



ADDRESS. 



■Comrades of the Army of NortJiem Virginia : 

I am here in obedience to your orders and give you a 
soldier's greeting. 

It has fallen to me, at your behest, to attempt the story of a 
defence more masterly in happy reaches of generalship than that 
of Sebastopol, and not less memorable than that of Zaragoza in a 
constancy which rose superior to accumulating disaster, and a stern 
valor ever reckoned highest by the enemy. 

It is a great task, nor do I take shame to myself that I am not 
equal to it, for, speaking soberly, it is a story so fraught with true 
though mournful glory — a story so high and noble in its persistent 
lesson of how great things may be wrested by human skill and 
valor from the malice of Fortune — that even a Thucydides or a 
Napier might suffer his nervous pencil to droop, lost, perchance, in 
wonder at the surprising issues which genius, with matchless spring, 
extorted time and agdin from cruel odds, or stirred too deeply for 
utterance by that which ever kindles the hearts of brave men — the 
spectacle of- human endurance meeting with unshaken front the 
very stroke of Fate. 

And if intensity of sorrowful admiration might not unnaturally 
paralyze the hand of the historian, who should undertake to trans- 
mit to posterity a truthful record of the unequal contest, what mortal 
among men could stand forth undismayed, when bidden to trace 
even the outlines of the story in presence of the survivors of that 

* From a strictly military point of view, the term "siege" cannot properly be applied to 
the*operations around Petersburg, for there was lacking what, according to Vauban, "is the 
first requisite in a siege— perfect investment." The same is true of Sebastopol. 



incomparable army, the followers of that matchless leader — vete- 
rans, to whom it has been given to see its every ej^isode emblazoned 
in crimson letters by the very God of Battles. 

And yet it is because of this presence, that I stand here not un- 
willingly to-night — for when I look down upon these bronzed and 
bearded faces, I cannot but remember that we have shared together 
the rough delights, the toils, the dangers of field of battle, and 
march and bivouac, and feel sure of indulgence in advance from 
those who are knit to even the humblest comrade by a companion- 
ship born of common devotion to that Cause which is yet "strong 
with the strength" of Truth, and "immortal with the immortality" 
of Right — born of such common devotion, nurtured in the fire of 
battle, strengthened and sanctified by a common reverence for the 
valiant souls who have fallen on sleep. 

It is not mine, comrades, to dazzle you with the tricks of rhetoric, 
nor charm your ear with smooth flowing periods ; but even were 
such mastery given to me, it would scarce befit my theme — for we 
have now to trace the history of the army to which we belonged, 
not in its full blaze of triumph, as when it wrote Richmond and 
Chancellorsville upon its standards, but in those last eventful days 
when its strength was well nigh " too slender to support the weight 
of victory " ; we have now to mark the conduct of its leader, not as 
when, the favored child of Mars, the clangor of his trumpets from 
the heights of Fredericksburg haughtily challenged the admiration 
of astonished nations, but in that severer glory which shines round 
about him as he stands at bay, girt with a handful of devoted 
soldiery, staying the arm of Fate with an incredible vigor of action 
and a consummate mastery of his art, and, still unsubdued in mind, 
delivers his last battle as fiercely as his first. 

And in the prosecution of the task confided to me — in my at- 
tempts to reconcile the conflicting testimony of eye-witnesses, in 
sifting hostile reports, and in testing by official data the statements 
of writers who have essayed the story of this final campaign — 
although at times it has seemed well-nigh a hopeless labor, and 
more than once recalled the scene in Sterne's inimitable masterpiece, 
in which Mr. Shandy, taking My Uncle Toby kindly by the hand, 
cries out, "Believe me, dear brother Toby, these military operations 
of yours are far above your strength," 3^et, remembering the spirited 
reply of My Uncle Toby, " What care I, brother, so it be for the 
good of the nation," — even so have I been upheld, reflecting that if 
it should be my good fortune to restore to its true light and bear- 



ing even one of the many actions of this vigorous campaign, which 
may have been heretofore misrepresented through ignorance or 
through passion, it woukl be counted as a service, however humble, 
to that arm}^ whose just renown can never be too jealously guarded 
by the men who were steadfast to their colors. 

That I should attempt a critical examination of that defence in 
detail, is manifestly impossible within the limits of an address, 
when it is remembered that, south of the Appomattox alone, thirteen 
pitched fights were delivered outside the works, beside number- 
less "affairs" on the part of the cavalry and small bodifes of 
infantry, while each day was attended by a number of minor events, 
which, taken separately, appear to be of little historical importance, 
but, when combined, exerted no mean influence on the conduct of 
the campaign. 

Nor, on the other hand, has the time yet come, in the opinion 
of many officers of sound and sober judment, for that larger treat- 
ment of my theme which would necessitate an impartial examina- 
tion of the measure to which the military operations were shaped 
by considerations of a political character — in other words, the 
time has not yet come when one may use the fearless frankness 
of Napier, who justly reckons it the crowing proof of the genius of 
Wellington, that while resisting with gigantic vigor the fierceness 
of the French, he had at the same time to " sustain the weakness 
of three inefficient cabinets." 

I propose, therefore, to notice some of the leading events of the 
campaign in its unity, which will indicate the general conception 
of the defence of Petersburg, animated by no other feeling towards 
the many brave men and officers of the Army of the Potomac than 
one of hearty admiration for their courage and endurance, desirous, 
above all, that truth, so far as we can attain it now, shall be spoken 
with soldierly bluntness, and error be not perpetuated. 

And at the very outset, it is not only pertinent, but essential to a 
proper appreciation of the conduct of affairs, that we should con- 
sider the morale of the two armies as they prepared to move into 
those vast lines of circumvallation and contravallation, destined 
to become more famous than Torres Vedras or those drawn by the 
genius of Turenne in the great wars of the Palatinate. The more 
so, that the most distinguished of Lee's foreign critics has declared 
that from the moment Grant sat down before the lines of PJchmond, 
the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia saw that the 



6 

inevitable blow " might be delayed, but could not be averted."* 
Other writers, with mawkish affectation of humanity, little allied 
to sound military judgment, have gone still further, and asserted 
that the struggle had assumed a phase so hopeless, that Lee should 
have used the vantage of his great position and stopped the further 
effusion of blood. Let us, the survivors of the Army of Northern 
Virginia, authoritatively declare in reply, that such was not the 
temper of our leader nor the temper of his men. 

It would, indeed, have been an amazing conclusion for either 
army or general to have reached as the lesson of the 

CAMPAIGN FROM THE WILDERNESS TO COLD HARBOR. 

Grant had carried into the Wilderness a well-ofhcered and 
thoroughly-equipped army of 141,000 men, to which Lee had op- 
posed a bare 50,000.t Despite these odds, Lee had four times forced 
his antagonist to change that line of operations on which he em- 
phatically declared he " proposed to fight it out if it took all sum- 
mer." He had sent him reeling and dripping with blood from the 
jungles of the Wilderness, though foiled himself of decisive victory 
by a capricious fortune, which struck down his trusted lieutenant in 
the very act of dealing the blow, which his chief, in a true inspira- 
tion of genius, had swiftly determined to deliver; barring the way 
again with fierce and wary caution, after a grim wrestle of twelve 
days and twelve nights, he had marked the glad alacrity with which 
the general, who but a few weeks before had interrupted the prudent 
Meade with the remark, " Oh, I never manoeuvre," now turned his 
back on the blood-stained thickets of Spotsylvania, and by " ma- 
noeuvring towards his left"| sought the passage of the North Anna — 
seeking it only to find, after crossing the right and left wings of 
his army, that his wary antagonist, who, unlike himself, did not 
disdain to manoeuvre, had, by a rare tactical movement, inserted 
a wedge of gray tipped with steel, riving his army in sunder, forcing 
him to recross the river, and for the third time abandon his line 
of attack. Then it was that the Federal commander, urged, mayhap, 
to the venture by the needs of a great political party, whose silent 



• Colonel Cliesney— ^ssaj/.s in Military Biography, p. 119. 

t Stanton's Report, 1865-66 ; General Early's able article in Southern Historical Papers, 
vol. ii, July, 1ST6 ; Lee's letter to General David Hunter, U. S. A. ; Lee's letter (October 4tli, 
1867), to Colonel C. A. White ; Swinton, A. P., p. 413. 

+ " The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and ISth (of May) were consumed in manoeuvring and 
awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Washington."— Grant's Report of Campaign. At 
this time Lee had not been reinforced by a single man. 



clamors for substantial victory smote more sharply on his inner 
ear than did the piteous wail which rose from countless Northern 
homes for the 45.000 brave men whose bodies lay putrefying in the 
tangled Golgotha from Rapidan to North Anna — urged by these 
clamors, or else goaded into unreasoning fury by the patient readi- 
ness of his adversary, ordered up 16,000 of Butler's men from south 
of the James, and at break of day on June the 3d assaulted Lee's 
entire front — resolute to burst through the slender, adamantine bar- 
rier, which alone stayed the mighty tide of conquest, that threatened 
to roll onward until it mingled with the waves of Western victory 
which were even then roaring through the passes of Alatoona — reso- 
lute, yet, like Lord Angelo, " slipping grossly," through " heat of 
blood and lack of tempered judgment," for the slender barrier 
yielded not, but when subsided the dreadful flood, which for a few 
brief moments had foamed in crimson fury round the embattled 
slopes of Cold Harbor, there was left him but the wreck of a noble 
army, which in sullen despair refused longer to obey his orders.* 

CONFIDENCE OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. 

Such was the retrospect of this thirty days' campaign to Lee, as 
he sat in his simple tent pitched upon the very ground, whence, but 
two years before, with positions reversed, he had driven McClellan 
in rout and disaster to the James; and though Lee the man was 
modest, he was but mortal, and Lee the soldier could but be con- 
scious of his own genius, and having provedjthe matchless temper 
of the blade, which Providence, or Destin}^, or call it what you will, 
had placed within his hands, we may be sure that his heart was 
stirred with high hopes of his country's deliverance, and that 
through these hopes his pliant genius was inspired to discern in 
each new difficulty but fresh device. And his veterans of con- 
firmed hardihood, watching the gracious serenity of that noble 
face, conscious of the same warlike virtues whch made him dear to 
them, caught up and reflected this confidence, remembering that 
he had declared to them in general orders after Spotsylvania : " It 
is in your power, under God, to defeat the last efi^ort of the enemy, 
establish the independence of your native land, and earn the last- 
ing love and gratitude of your countrymen and the admiration of 
mankind."t 

And to an army intelligent as it was resolute, there was surely 

* Swinton, A. P., p. 487 ; Draper, vol. iii, p. 387. 
t Lee's General Order, May 16tli, 1864. 



much to confirm this confidence, outside enthusiastic trust in the 
resources of their leader. 

The sobering consciousness of instant peril had quickened their 
discernment, and the patient watchers in the swamps of Chicka- 
hominy, no longer deluded by the ignis fatuus of foreign interven- 
tion, hopes of which had been kindled anew in the Capital by the 
fiery speech of the Marquis of Clanricarde, regarded only, but 
with eager exultation, the signs in camp and country of the enemy, 
Mr. Seward's thirty days' draft on victory, though given to a superb 
army for collection, and endorsed by the credulity of the nation, 
had gone to protest, and Mr. Lincoln now signified his intention of 
calling for 500,000 additional men to enforce its payment.* 

No censorship of the press could restrain the clamorous discon- 
tent which burst forth North and West at this proposed call for 
half a million more men, and 

GOLD, 

that unfailing barometer of the hopes and fears, the joy and despair, 
of a purely commercial people, indicated clearly enough the gloomy 
forebodings of the nation. Every tick of the second-hand on the 
dial registered an additional S35 to the national debt, or $2,100 per 
minute, $126,000 an hour, $3,024,000 a day. Ragged veterans, 
leaning on the blackened guns in the trenches, reading the news- 
papers just passed across the picket lines — men who had left their 
ledgers and knew the mysteries of money — marked, while their 
faces puckered with shrewd wrinkles of successful trade, the course 
of the precious mercury. When Grant crossed the Rapidan, gold 
had gone down with a rush from 1.89 to 1.70,t and though from the 
Wilderness on, Mr. Stanton — who was Napoleonic in his bulletins? 
if in nothing else — persistently chronicled success whenever battle 
was joined, gold rose with a like persistency after each announce- 
ment — a signal example of cynical unbelief in a truly good and 
great man. 

True, for a few days after Cold Harbor, the telegraph wires became 
mysteriously " out of working order," " owing," as he candidly con- 
fesses to General Dix in New York, "to violent storms on the Pe- 
ninsula," but the dreadful story gradually leaked out, and gold 
gave a frantic bound to 2.03, to 2.30 — before the end of the month 

* This draft of 500,000 men was actually marte under act of July 4th, 1864. 
t The quotations of gold in this address were tabulated from flies of the New York Herald 
for 1864. 



9 

to 2.52— while Congress in a flurry passed a silly " gold bill," and 
the New York Herald shrieked out curses against " Rebel sympa- 
thizers in Wall Street "—as if Wall Street ever sympathized with 
anything save the Almighty Dollar. 

Of the temper of the enemy, I myself do not presume to speak, 
but there are not lacking indications that General Grant's theory 
of action, which he summed up in the phrase "to hammer continu- 
ously," had become somewhat modified by experience, and that, at 
this time, his new evangel of " attrition " found but few zealous 
disciples in the Army of the Potomac. Lee had lost in the cam- 
paign between 15,000 and 16,000 men* — veterans, whose lives, it is 
true, regarding them simply as soldiers, were precious beyond 
numerical reckoning. Of the Army of the Potomac, not counting 
the losses in the Tenth and Eighteenth corps, which had been called 
up to take part in the battle of Cold Harbor, more than 60,000 men 
had been put hors du combat, including 3,000 officers — a loss greater 
by 10,000 than the total force which Lee had carried into the 
Wilderness.f " Had not success elsewhere come to brighten the hori- 
zon," says the historian of that army, "it would have been difficult 
to have raised new forces to recruit the Army of the Potomac, which, 
shaken in its structure, its valor quenched in blood, and thousands 
of its ablest officers killed and wounded, was the Army of the 
Potomac no more." 

This apparent digression from my theme has seemed to me, com- 
rades, not impertinent, because, as I have said, the temper of this 
army at that time has been misunderstood by some and misrepre- 
sented by others; because the truth in regard 1o the matter, will 
alone enable those who come after us to understand how such a 
handful, ill-appointed and ill-fed, maintained for so long a time 
against overwhelming odds the fiercest defence of modern times. 
Nay, more, I believe that when the whole truth shall be told touch- 
ing this eventful campaign, it will be shown that, at no time during 
the war, had the valor of this army and the skill of its leader been 
so near to compelling an honorable peace as in the days immedi- 
ately succeeding Cold Harbor. Such is the testimony of Federal 
officers, high in rank, whose courage you admired in war and whose 

* On May 31st, Lee, according to the returns, had 44,24T men. Allowing him 50,000 men 
at the opening of the campaign, and 9,000 reinforcements at Hanover Courthouse, his loss 
would be 14,753. To this we must add his loss at Cold Harbor, which was but a few hun- 
dreds. Swinton (p. 494) says that " the Army of the Potoviac lost at least twenty man to Lee's 
one''' in that battle, and puts Grant's loss at 13,153. 

t Swinton, p. 491. 



10 

magnanimity you have appreciated in peace. Mr. Greeley, in 
his "History of the Rebellion," says emphatically, these were "the 
very darkest hours of our contest — those in which our loyal people 
most profoundly despaired of its successful issue."* Swinton, a 
shrewd observer and candid historian, says: "So gloomy was the 
military outlook after the action on the Chickahominy, and to such 
a degree by consequence had the moral spring of the public mind 
become relaxed, that there was at this time great danger of a 
collapse of the war." And he adds, significantly: "The archives 
of the State Department, when one day made public, will show 
how deeply the Government was affected by the want of military 
success, and to what resolutions the Executive had in consequence co7ne."f 
But, alas ! the " success elsewhere," of which the historian speaks, 
had "come to brighten the horizon," and, continuing, quickened 
into vigorous action the vast resources of the North. 

Grant, reinforced by over thirty thousand men at Spotsylvania,t 
was heavily reinforced again ; and putting aside with great firmness 
the well known wishes of the Federal Executive, prepared to 
change his strategy for the fifth time, and 

ASSAIL RICHMOND FROM THE SOUTH. 

It was a determination based upon the soundest military prin- 
ciples, for from that direction could an assailant hope to bring to 
bear with greatest assurance of success that cardinal maxim of 
military strategy, " operate on the communications of the enemy 
without endangering your own." Though the plan was now for 
the first time to be put to the test, it was no new conception, 
McClellan had proposed it to Halleck,§ when that General visited 
the Army of the Potomac after what was euphemistically termed 
" its strategic change of base to the James," but the Chief of 
the Staff curtly rejected it as " impracticable." Lee, cautious of 
speech, had not hesitated to say to friends here in Richmond that 
the good people of the town might go to their beds without mis- 
giving, so long as the enemy assailed the Capital north and east, 
and left unvexed his communications with the Carolinas. General 

* He embraces period from Cold Harbor to Crater, inclusive. 

t Swinton, p. 495, note. 

t As tlie Secretary of War denies access to the archives at Washington, It Is Impossible 
to state the precise flgures. Mr. Stanton In his report says : " Meanwhile, in order to repair 
the losses of the Army of the Potomac, the chief jmrt of the force designed to guard the 
Middle Department (Baltimore) and the Department of Washington (in all 47,751 men), was 
called forward to the front." 

§ Memorandum of Halleck (July 27th, 1862), In Report on Conduct War, Part I, p. 454. 



11 

Grant himself, while still in the West, had urged upon the Govern- 
ment the adoption of this plan, which, in his eyes, was identical 
in its main features with that which had won for him the capitu- 
lation of Vickshurg. Why, when invested with supreme command, 
he should have rejected a plan which his judgment had apjjroved 
but a year before, and adopted only after the loss of sixty thousand 
veteran troops a line of advance open to him at the outset without 
firing a gun — is one of the mysteries of war, the key to which is 
most likely to be found in the political history of the time. 

Resolved upon this last change of base, General Grant pressed 
its execution. From the 4th to the 11th of June, by a gradual 
withdrawal of his right flank, he had placed his army within easy 
marches of the lower crossings of the Chickahominy, and Sheridan, 
meanwhile, having been dispatched to destroy the Virginia Central 
railroad and effect a junction with Hunter, on Sunday night, June 
12th, 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC WAS PUT IN MOTION FOR THE JAMES. 

Warren, with the Fifth corps and Wilson's division of cavalry, 
seizing the crossing at Long Bridge, made his dispositions to screen 
the movement. Hancock's corps, marching past the Fifth, was 
directed upon Willcox's landing; Wright's and Burnside's corps 
upon Douthat's, while Smith, with four divisions of the Tenth and 
Eighteenth corps, moved rapidly to White Plouse and embarked 
for Bermuda Hundred.* 

Early on the morning of the 13th, Warren, who executed his 
critical task with marked address, pushed forward Crawford's di- 
vision on the New Market road, and compelling the few Confederate 
squadrons of observation to retire across White Oak Swamp, threat- 
ened direct advance on Richmond, while the activity of his power- 
ful horse completely shrouded for the time the movement in his 
rear. 

Lee did not attack, for Early had been detached for the defence of 
Lynchburg, and the main body of his cavalry being absent under 
Hampton, he was compelled, like the Great 'Frederick, when Traun's 
Pandours enveloped Silesia in midnight, "to read his position as if 
by flashes of lightning." On the next day, however, a small body 
of horse, under W. H. F. Lee, boldly charging the enemy, drove 
them hotly past Malvern Hill, and on the same evening Lee re- 
ceived accurate information as to the whereabouts of his adversary .f 

*8winton, A. P., p. 498. 

t Lee's dispatch, 9 P. M., June 14th, 1864^ 



12 

But not a man of the Army of the Potomac had as yet crossed, and 
the conjuncture bemg now so nice that the slightest blunder would 
have been attended with irreparable disaster, he drew back his 
troops towards Chaffin's, dispatched Hoke early on the 15th from 
Drewry's Bluff to reinforce Beauregard, and stood ready to repel 
direct advance by the river routes or to throw his army into Peters- 
burg, as events might dictate. 

Grant's design, as we now know, was to 

SEIZE PETERSBURG BY A COUP-DE-MAIN, 

and it had certainly succeeded but for an incredible negligence 
on his own part. 

Smith's command reached Bermuda Hundred, where Grant was 
in person,* on the evening of the 14th, and being reinforced by 
Kautz's Division of Cavalry and Hink's Division of Negro Infantry, 
■was at once directed to cross the Appomattox at Point of Rocks, 
where pontons had been laid, and move rapidly on Petersburg. 
The passage of the river was effected during the same night, and 
early on the 15th, Smith advanced in three columns, Kautz with 
his horsemen covering his left. Now Hancock's entire corps had 
been ferried to the south side on the night of Smith's arrival at 
Bermuda Hundred, and might easily have been pushed forward to 
take part in the assault, but, left in ignorance of the projected coup- 
de-main, its commander, in obedience to orders, was awaiting 
rations where he had crossed. Incredible as it may seem, General 
Meade, the immediate commander of the Army of the Potomac, 
was left in like ignorance,t and General Grant, hurrying back to the 
north side to push forward reinforcements from the corps of Wright 
and Burnside, found that the army ponton-train had been sent to 
piece out the wagon-train pontons, which had proved insufficient 
for the passage of the Chickahominy at Coles' ferry. Thus nearly 
a day was gained to the handful of brave men defending the lines 
of Petersburg, and lost to the Army of the Potomac — a curious 
instance of the uncertain contingencies of war, reminding the mili- 
tary student, with a difference, of the happy chance which saved 
Zaragoza in the first siege, when Lefebre Desnouettes, " missing the 
road to the bridge, missed that to victory." 

Smith, pushing forward his columns towards Petersburg early on 
the morning of the 15th, had scarcely advanced a distance of two 

* Grant and Ris Campaigns, p. 348. 
t Swinton, pp. 499 and 503-506. 



13 

miles, when he encountered a hasty line of rifle trenches, held by 
Graham's light battery and a meagre force of dismounted cavalry — 
the whole under Bearing, a young brigadier of high and daring 
spirit and of much experience in war. This position, resolutely 
held for two hours, was finally carried by the infantry, yet Bearing, 
retiring slowly with unabashed front, hotly disputing every foot of 
the advance, so delayed the hostile columns that it was 11 o'clock 
A. M. before they came upon the heavy line of entrenchments 
covering the eastern approaches to the town. 

FIRST ASSAULT ON PETERSBURG. 

Shortly after that hour, Smith moved by the Baxter Road upon 
the works in front of Batteries 6 and 7, but the men of Wise's 
brigade resisted his repeated assaults with " unsurpassed stubborn- 
ness " — I use the exact language of Beauregard* — while the rapid 
fire of the light batteries completed for the time his discomfiture. 

Smith had been told that the works defending Petersburg were 
such that " cavalry could ride over them " — " a representation," says 
Mr. Swinton archly, "not justified by his experience," and he now 
proceeded to reconnoitre more carefully what was in his front. 

THE OLD DEFENCES OF PETERSBURG 

consisted of a heavy line of redans connected by powerful rifle 
trenches, and were of such extent as to require a garrison of 
25,000 men. In the opinion of General Beauregard, this line was 
in many places faultily located, and especially vulnerable in the 
quarter of batteries 5, 6 and 7. Reckoning his heavy gunners and 
the local militia, Beauregard had for the defence of this extended 
line, on the morning of the 15th, but 2,200 men of all arms, while 
Smith confronted him with above 20,000 troops. At 7.30 P. M- 
the enemy, warned by their heavy losses of the morning against 
assaulting in column in face of artillery served with such rapidity 
and precision, advanced at a charging pace in line, and after a 
spirited contest carried with a rush the whole line of redans from 
5 to 9 inclusive. 

Scarcely had the assault ended, when Hancock came up with the 
Second corps, and though the ranking officer, with rare generosity, 
which recalls the chivalric conduct of Sir James Outram to Have- 

*For the Confederate operations from the 15th to the 19th June, Inclusive, I am greatly 
indebted to General Beauregard's MS. Report, kindly placed at my disposal. 



14 

lock in front of Lucknow,* at once offered his troops to Smith, and 
stood ready to receive the orders of his subordinate. 

THE PRIZE WAS NOW WITHIN HIS GRASP 

had he boldly advanced — and the moon shining brightly highly 
favored such enterprise — ^but Smith, it would seem, though pos- 
sessed of considerable professional skill, was not endowed with 
that intuitive sagacity which swiftly discerns the chances of the 
moment, and thus halting on the very threshold of decisive victory, 
contented himself with partial success, and having relieved his 
divisions in the captured works with Hancock's troops, waited for 
the morning. 

Meanwhile, Hoke had arrived on the Confederate side, and 
Beauregard, having disposed his meagre force upon a new line a 
short distance in rear of the lost redans, ordered down Bushrod 
Johnson's three brigades from the Bermuda Hundred front, and 
made such preparation as was possible for the assault of the mor- 
row. 

SECOND day's assaults. 

The situation was indeed critical, for though the enemy assaulted 
but feebly the next morning, and Johnson's brigades arrived at 10 
A. M., there was still such disparity of numbers as might well have 
shaken the resolution of a less determined commander. Burnside's 
corps reached the Federal front at noon, and General Meade, having 
met General Grant on the City Point Road,t was directed to assume 
immediate command of the troops, and assault as soon as practica- 
ble. Thus at 5.30 on the evening of the 16th, more than 70,000 
troops were launched against the works manned by but 10,000 brave 
men, a disparity still further increased by the arrival at dusk of 
Warren's corps, two brigades of which — Miles' and Griffin's — took 
part in the closing assaults. For three hours the fight raged furiously 
along the whole line with varying success, nor did the contest subside 
until after 9 o'clock, when it was found that Birney, of Hancock's 
corps, had effected a serious lodgment, from which the Confederates 
in vain attempted to expel him during the night. 

On the same day Pickett's division, dispatched by Lee and lead- 
ing the advance of Anderson's corps, recaptured the lines on the 
Bermuda Hundred front, which Beauregard had been forced to 

* Outram's Divisional Order on night of September IGtli, 1851— Brock's Life of Havelock, 
p. 213. 

t Grant and His Campaigns, p. 349. 



15 

uncover, and which had been immediately seized by Butler's troops. 
It is surely sufficient answer to those who represent Lee as even 
then despondently forecasting the final issue, to find him writing 
next day in great good humor to Anderson: "I believe that the 
men of your corps will carry anything they are put against. We 
tried very hard to stop Pickett's men from capturing the breast- 
works of the enemy, but couldn't do it."* 

THIRD day's assaults. 

Fortunately for the weary Confederates, the enemy attempted no 

offensive movement until nearly noon of the next day, at which hour 

the Ninth corps, advancing with spirit, carried a redoubt in its front, 

together with four pieces of artillery and several hundred prisoners, 

while Hancock's corps pressed back the Confederates over Hare's 

Hill — the spot afterwards known as Fort Steadman, and made 

famous by Gordon's sudden and daring stroke. Later in the day 

the Ninth corps attacked again, but were driven back with severe 

loss. 

gracie's alabamians to the rescue. 

Then along the whole front occurred a series of assaults and 
counter charges creditable to the courage and enterprise of both 
sides, yet so confused that an attempted narrative would necessarily 
share that confusion. Suffice it to say, that at dusk the Con- 
federate lines were pierced, and, the troops crowding together in 
disorder, irreparable disaster seemed imminent, when suddenly in 
the dim twilight a dark column was descried mounting swiftly from 
the ravines in rear, and Gracie's gallant Alabamians, springing 
along the crest with fierce cries, leaped over the works, captured over 
fifteen hundred prisoners, and drove the enemy pell-mell from 
the disputed point.f Then the combat broke out afresh, for the 
enemy, with reason, felt that chance alone had foiled them of de- 
cisive success, and despite the darkness, the fight raged with un- 
abated fury until past midnight. Meanwhile, 

the beleaguered town, girdled with steel and fire, 

bore herself with proud and lofty port, worthy her renown in other 
wars, and the fires of her ancient patriotism, quickened by the 
hot breath of peril, blazed forth with such surpassing brightness 

* Lee's letter to Anderson, Clay House, June ITth, 1864. 

t "Gracie's brigade was promptly thrown into the gap in the lines, and drove back the 
Federals, capturing from 1,500 to 2,000 pnaoners."— Beauregard's MS. Report, p. 16. 



16 

as pierced the darkness of that gloomy night ; nor could "the driv- 
ing storm of war," which beat so pitilessly upon this heroic city for 
well-nigh a twelvemonth, ever quench the blaze which, even to the 
end, shone as a flaming beacon to the people of the vexed Com- 
monwealth and to anxious patriots, who from afar watched the 
issues of the unequal contest. Her men litted to bear arms were 
yonder with Lee's veterans, and now her women, suddenly en- 
vironed by all the dread realities of war, discovered a constancy and 
heroism befiting the wives and mothers of such valiant soldiers. 
Some, watching in the hospitals, cheered on the convalescents, who, 
when the sounds of battle grew nearer, rose like faithful soldiers to 
join their comrades ; others, hurrying along the deserted streets, the 
silence of which was ever and anon sharply broken by screaming 
shell, streamed far out on the highways to meet the w^ounded and 
bear them to patriot homes. Nor shall we wonder at this devotion, 
for in the very beginning of those eventful days, these noble women, 
hanging for a few brief moments on the necks of gray-haired 
grandsires, or pressing the mother-kiss upon the brows of eager 
boys, had bidden them, with eyes brimming with prayerful tears, 
to go and serve the State upon the outer works; and surely, when 
thus duty and honor had weighed down the scale of natural love, 
they had learned, with an agony which man can never measure, 
that life itself must be accounted as a worthless thing when the 
safety of a nation is at stake. 

That it is no fanqy picture, comrades, which I have drawn for 
you, is attested by that battle-tablet in old Blandford Church, which 
records the names of the gray -haired men who fell in defence of 
their native town ; while, if you will pardon a personal allusion, it 
afterwards came to me, as a schoolmaster, to teach some of these 
veterans'" lads, who every day came to class with empty sleeves 
pinned across their breasts. 

burnside's captured dispatch. 

The battle, as we have seen, did not cease until half-past 12 on the 
night of the 17th, and the evacuation of the town seemed inevitable, 
when, by a happy accident, an officer of Burnside's staff, losing his 
way in the darkness, rode into the Confederate lines, bearing a 
dispatch from Burnside to Meade to the effect that the Ninth corps 
had been very roughly handled and should be promptly reinforced. 
This dispatch had been referred by Meade to Smith for his infor- 
mation, with the request that he at once reinforce Burnside with 



< 17 

such troops as could be spared. Scarcely had Beauregard finished 
reading the captured missive, when a courier galloped up with a 
message from Hoke, stating that he had easily repulsed Smith's 
assaults and could lend a helping hand elsewhere.* But before this, 
Beauregard, foreseeing the rupture of his lines, as yet too extended 
for the strength of his command, now materially weakened by 
recent casualties,t had selected a new and shorter line to the rear, 
and shortly after the combat ceased, the toops were ordered to retire 
upon this new position — a delicate movement, considering the 
proximity of the enemy, yet executed rapidly and without con- 
fusion, for he had caused the line to be marked with white stakes, 
and reqdired brigade and division staff-officers to acquaint them- 
selves with the positions to be occupied by their resj^ective com- 
mands. 

This was the line held until the close of the defence. 

ASSAULTS OF THE FOURTH DAY. 

Grant had ordered Meade to assault along the whole front at 
daylight of the 18th, but when the Federal skirmishers moved 
forward at that hour, it was found that the line so stoutly defended 
the evening before, had been abandoned by the Confederates. This 
necessitated fresh dispositions, and Meade, having reconnoitred his 
front, now determined upon assault in column against certain se- 
lected points instead of a general attack in line, as originally in- 
tended.| 

At 82 A. M. Kershaw's division moved into position on right of 
the Confederate line, and at 9 o'clock 

GENERAL LEE RODE UPON THE FIELD, 

It was noon before the enemy essayed any vigorous attack, but 
then began a series of swift and furious assaults, continuing at in- 
tervals far into the evening — from Martindale on the right, from 
Hancock and Burnside in the centre, from Warren on the left; but 
though their men advanced with spirit, cheering and at the run, 
and their officers displayed an astonishing hardihood, several of 
them rushing up to within thirty yards of the adverse works, bear- 
ing the colors, yet the huge columns, rent by the plunging fire of 
the light guns, and smitten with a tempest of bullets, recoiled in 
confusion, and finally fled, leaving their dead and dying on the 
field along the whole front. 

* This incident is vouclied for by two of General Beauregard's staff-oflicers. 

t Beauregard's MS. Report. 

t Grant and His Campaigns, p. 352. Meade's Report of Campaign of 1864.' 



18 . 

The men of Anderson's and Hill's corps were now pouring into 
the Confederate works, division after division, battery after battery, 
and when night fell, those two grim adversaries, the Army of the 
Potomac and the Army of Northern Virghiia, again confronted each 
other in array of battle, while General Grant had learned that 
Petersburg, as Napoleon said of Valencia, 

"could not be taken by the collar." 

In these four days of assault, from Wednesday to Saturday in- 
clusive, the enemy confess to a loss of more than 10,000 men* — a 
fact which attests with appalling eloquence the vigor of the de- 
fence. 

Sunda}^ morning, June 19th, dawned with soft and dewy bright- 
ness, and the Sabbath's stillness remained unbroken, save when at 
distant intervals a single gun boomed out from the great salients, 
or the rattling fire of the pickets on the river front fretted for a few 
brief moments the peaceful air. But it was no da}^ of rest to the 
contending armies, for the Confederates were actively strengthening 
their crude position, while the enemy plied pick, and spade, and 
axe with such silent vigor, that, this comparative quiet reigning for 
two successive days, there arose, as if by touch of a magician's 
wand, a vast cordon of redoubts of powerful profile connected by 
heavy infantry parapets, stretching from the Appomattox to the 
extreme Federal left — a line of prodigious strength, and constructed 
with amazing skill, destined long to remain, to the military student 
at least, an enduring monument of the ability of the engineers of 
the Army of the Potomac. 

This done. General Grant was now free to begin that series of 
attemj^ts against Lee's communications, which, despite repeated 
disaster, he continued, with slight intermission, to the end. 

extension of the federal left. 

On Tuesday, the 21st, the Second and Sixth corps were put in 
motion to extend the Federal left — the Second, to take position west 
of the Jerusalem Plank Road, its right connecting with Warren's 
left, which rested at that point; the Sixth, to extend to the left 
of the Second, and, if possible, effect a lodgment on the Weldon 
railroad. On the same day Wilson, with about 6,000 sabres,t con- 

*Swinton, A. P., p. 514. 

t Coppee (Grant and His Campaigns, p. 35S), says "8,000 men in aU," but this seems, oa 
investigation, an over-estimate. 



19 

sisting of his own and Kautz's divisions, was dispatched to de- 
stroy the Weldon road farther to the south, and thence, by a wide 
Bweep to the west, to cut the Southside and Danville roads. The 
Second corps, now commanded by Birney — for Hancock's wound, 
received at Gettysburg, had broken out afresh — succeeded, after 
some sharp skirmishing with the Confederate cavalry, in taking 
position to the left of Warren, and the Sixth corps, moving up the 
same evening, established itself on a line in rear and parallel to 
the Second, its left slightly overlapping that corps. But the next 
morning, the Confederate horse showed such a bold front, though, 
■'twas but a scratch force with cattle like "walking trestles," that 
General Grant determined to suspend the movements to the railroad, 
and Birney was ordered " to swing forward the left of the Second 
corps so as to envelop the right flank of the Confederates."* 

ACTION OF TWENTY-SECOND OF JUNE. 

This change of orders led to delay, which Lee, consummate mas- 
ter of that art which teaches that " offensive movements are the 
foundation of a good defence," was swift to improve. Riding to 
his right, he sent for Mahone, who, as civil engineer, had surveyed 
the country and knew every inch of the ground hidden by the 
tangled chaparral. Few words were wasted. Mahone proposed 
that he be allowed to take three brigades of Anderson's old division 
and strike the enemy in flank. Lee assented. Passing his men 
quickly along a ravine, which screened them from the enemy's 
pickets, Mahone gained a point which he rightly conjectured to be 
beyond the hostile flank. Here, in an open field fronting the 
"Johnson House," he formed line of battle — the brigades of Saun- 
ders and Wright in front, his own brigade, commanded by Colonel 
Weisiger, supporting the right, while Mcintosh of the artillery 
was directed to move with two guns in the open on the left. Birney, 
meanwhile, had nearly completed his movement, which was ex- 
ecuted without reference to the Sixth corps, and left an ever- wide- 
ning gap between the two lines, as, "pivoting on his right di- 
vision, under Gibbon, he swung forward his left."f Yet Mott's 
division had come into position on Gibbon's left, and had com- 
menced entrenching, and Barlow was moving up to the left of 
Mott, when suddenly and swiftly, with a wild yell which rang out 
shrill and fierce through the gloomy pines, Mahone's men burst 

* Swinton, A. P., p. 512. 

t/&. 

2 



20 

upon the flank — a pealing volley, which roared along the whole 
front — a stream of wasting fire, under which the adverse left fell as 
one man — and the bronzed veterans swept forward, shrivelling up 
Barlow's division as lightning shrivels the dead leaves of autumn ; 
then, cleaving a fiery path diagonally across the enemy's front, 
spreading dismay and destruction, rolled up Mott's division in its 
turn, and without check, the woods still reverberating with their 
fierce clamor, stormed and carried Gibbon's entrenchments and 
seized his guns. 

When night came down the victors returned to the main lines, 
guarding 1,742 prisoners, and bearing as trophies a vast quantity 
of small arms, four light guns, and eight standards.* 

In this brilliant feat of arms, co-operation, it would appear, was 
expected from another quarter, but though, as Touchstone says, 
*' There is much virtue in if," I am here to relate the actual events 
of the defence, rather than to speculate upon what might have 
been. 

FIRST BATTLE OF EEAMs' STATION. 

On the same day, Wilson with his cavalry struck the Weldon rail- 
road at Reams' Station, destroyed the track for several miles, and 
then pushed westward to the Southside road. Here, while tearing 
up the rails at " Blacks-and- Whites," having dispatched Kautz, 
meanwhile, to destroy the junction of the Southside and Danville 
roads at Burkeville, he was sharply assailed by W. H. F. Lee, who 
had followed him with his division of cavalry, and who now 
wrested from him the road upon which the raiders were moving. 
Again and again did Wilson seek to wrest it back, but Lee could 
not be dislodged. The combat was renewed next day, lasting from 
midday till dark, but at daylight of the 24th the Federal cavalry 
withdrew, leaving their killed and wounded on the field.f Wilson 
reached Meherrin Station on the Danville road the same day, and 
Kautz having rejoined him, the two columns pushed on rapidly to 
Staunton River Bridge. But the local militia, entrenched at that 
point, behaved with great firmness, and W. H. F. Lee boldly at- 
tacking, again drove the Federals before him until dark. J Wilson 
now turned to regain the lines in front of Petersburg, but his officers 
and men were marauding in a fashion which no prudent officer, on 

♦ Lee's official dispatch, June 22d, 1864. Swinton (p. 512) says "2,500 prisoaers and many 
standards." It appears on close investigation that General Lee, through caution, very fre- 
quently understates in first dispatches the losses of the enemy. 

t Lee's official dispatch, June 25th, 1864. 

i Lee's official dispatch, June 26th, 1864. 



21 

such service as his, should ever have allowed, while W. H. F. Lee 
hung upon his rear with an exasperating tenacity which brought 
delay and redoubled his difficulties. At every step, indeed, the 
peril thickened, for Hampton, who had crossed the James, now 
came to W. H. F. Lee's help with a strong body of horse, and at- 
tacking the enemy on Tuesday evening (June 28th), at Sappony 
Church, drove him until dark, harassed him the livelong night, 
turned his left in the morning, and sent him helter-skelter before 
his horsemen.* 

Wilson, fairly bewildered, sought to reach Reams' Station, which 
he believed to be still in possession of the Federals — a determina- 
tion destined to be attended with irreparable disaster to him, for 
General Lee had dispatched thither two brigades of infantry 
(Finnegan's and Saunders') under Mahone, and two light batteries 
(Brander's and "the Purcell"), under Pegram, followed by Fitz. 
Lee, who had just roughly handled Gregg at Nance's Shop, and who 
now came down at a sharp trot to take part in the tumult. 
Wilson, reaching his objective, descried ominous clouds of dust 
rising on the roads by which he had hoped to win safety, but offer- 
ing, in desperation, a seemingly bold front prepared for battle. 

Informed by a negro, whose knowledge of the country notably 
expanded at sight of a six-shooter, that there was a "blind-road" 
leading in rear of Wilson's left, Fitz. Lee at once pushed forward 
with his dusky guide, and having assured himself by personal re- 
connoissance of the truth of the information, quickly made his 
dispositions. Lomax's horsemen, dismounted, were formed across 
this road, with Wickham's mounted brigade in reserve, the latter 
being instructed to charge so soon as Lomax had shaken the enemy. 
In a twinkling, as it seemed, the rattling fire of the carbines told 
that Lomax was hotly engaged, and on the instant the movement 
in front began — the infantry, under Mahone, advancing swiftly 
across the open field, pouring in a biting volley, Pegram firing 
rapidly for a few moments, then limbering up and going forward 
at a gallop to come into battery on a line with the infantry, while 
Fitz. Lee, the Federals rapidly giving ground before his dismounted 
troopers, called up his mounted squadrons and went in with his 
rough stroke at a thundering pace on the enemy's left and rear.f 

For a brief space the confused combat, ever receding, went on — 
fierce shouts of triumph mingling with the dismal cries of stricken 

* Lee's official dispatch, June 29tli, 1864, 8 P. M. 
t Fitz. Lee's MS. report. Lee's official dispatch. 



22 

men, ringing pistol shots, the clattering fire of cavalry carbines, 
the dull roar of the guns — then, on a sudden, the headlong pace 
of "Runaway Down." The woods were now all ablaze, for Wilson 
had fired his trains, and the infantry and artillery, pressing for- 
ward through the stifling heat and smoke, were greeted by a sight 
not soon to be forgotten — a score or two of Federal troopers, in 
gaily-trimmed jackets, lying dead upon their faces in the dusty 
road — pistols, carbines, sabres, scattered over the ground in wildest 
profusion — a long line of ambulances filled wdth wounded men, 
who gave vent to piteous moans — a confused mass of guns, cais- 
sons, supply and ordnance wagons, dead horses, stolen vehicles of 
all kinds, from the wonderful "one-horse shay" to the old family 
carriage, all of them crammed with books, bacon, looking-glasses, 
and ladies' wearing apparel of every description, from garments of 
mysterious pattern to dresses of the finest stuff — while cowering 
along the road side were nearly a thousand fugitive negroes, the 
poor creatures almost pallid with fright, the pickaninnies roaring 
lustily, several of the women in the pangs of childbirth. Nor was 
this shameful pillage on the part of the men to be wondered at, for 
in the head-quarter wagon of the commanding general was found 
much plunder — among other articles of stolen silver a communion- 
service inscribed " Saint Johi's Church, Cumberland Parish, Lunen- 
burg.^^* 

FITZ. LEE, IN HOT PURSUIT, 

captured within a few miles two more light guns, and ordered the 
Federal artillerymen to turn them upon their flying comrades. 
Whether through pride in their well-known proficiency in this arm 
of the service, or because they were conscious of the exclusive, if 
not gratifying attention, of sundry lean-faced Confederates of de- 
termined aspect, I do not know, but certain is it that the cannoniers 
soon warmed to their work, and the gunners, stepping quickly 
aside to avoid the smoke, marked the successful shots, and dis- 
covered their satisfaction by cries of approbation to their men.f 

Thus Wilson, who but eight days before had crossed this road 
in all the pomp of war, with gaily-flaunting pennons and burnished 
trappings flashing in the sun, while the earth trembled beneath the 
thunder of his trampling squadrons, now slunk across the Notto- 

• A list of the stolen silver may be found in the Richmond Examiner, July 5th, 1864. In the 
same paper (June 27th) may be seen an official list, sent by General Lomax, of the silver 
and In Custer's head-quarter wagon captured at Trevilian's. The silver was sent to W. 
. McFarland, Esq., of Kichmond, to be identified and reclaimed by its owners. 
fFltz. Lee's MS. report. Statement of Lieutenant Charles Minnigerode, A. D. C. 



23 

way ("horses and men in a pitiable condition," says the Union his- 
torian), having abandoned to the Confederates his trains, a great 
quantity of valuable ordnance stores and small arms, the captured 
negroes, one thousand prisoners, besides his killed and ivounded, and 
thirteen pieces of artillery.* 

Yet General Grant, to use his own phrase, felt " compensated,'' 
and the Confederates, forbearing to inquire too curiously into his 
reasons, were not dissatisfied, for the damage to the roads was soon 
repaired, 

AND THE CAMP-WITS HAD GAINED ANOTHER JOKE — 

the latter openly alleging that Wilson had given a striking example 
of what is known in strategy as moving on parallel lines, for that, 
after eagerly tearing up the road, he had been no less eager in 
tearing down the road. 

I have dwelt thus at length, comrades, on these two attempts of 
General Grant to extend his left and cut Lee's communications, 
because they were the first of a series of like enterprises, and illus- 
trate fairly the repeated disaster which befel him in his efforts to 
reach the Confederate arteries of supply. 

Having made still another attempt on the 23d to extend the 
Sixth corps to the Weldon railroad, in which he suffered a loss of 
above five hundred prisoners, General Grant now sharply refused his 
left on the Jerusalem Plank Road, yet abated no whit the marvelous 
energy which he had displayed since his partial investment of the 
town. Early was at this time menacing Washington, uncovered 
by Hunter's extraordinary line of retreat, and thither, in obedience 
to urgent orders, Grant dispatched the Sixth corps. But, at the 
same time, he directed his engineers to examine the whole front 
south of the James with a view to direct assault, and pushed forward 
vigorously to completion his works, which, when heavily armed 
with artillery, would be capable of assured defence by a fraction of 
his preponderating force, leaving the bulk of his army available 
for active operations on the adverse flanks, or, should occasion 
offer, for such assault as he contemplated. The latter stroke suited 
best the temper of the man, and the engineers reporting, after 
careful reconnoissance, the Bermuda Hundred front impracticable, 
but that held by Burnside's corps as favoring, under certain con- 
ditions, such enterprise, he determined to assault from that quarter.f 

* Lee's official dispatch, July 1st, 1864. 

t Grant's letter to M.ea.de.— Report on the Conduct of the War (1S65), vol. i, p. 42. 



24 



THE CRATER FIGHT. 



Burnside held an advanced position, carried in the assaults of 
the 17th and 18th of June by his own troops and Griffin's division 
of Warren's corps, and had succeeded in constructing a heavy 
line of rifle-pits scarcely more than 100 yards distant from what 
was then known as the Elliott Salient.* Immediately in rear of 
this advanced line the ground dipped suddenly and broadening out 
into a meadow of considerable extent, afforded an admirable po- 
sition for massing a large body of troops, while working parties 
would be eflfectually screened from the observation of the Confede- 
rates holding the crest beyond.f 

Now, it happened that the Second division of the Ninth corps 
guarded this portion of the Federal front, and as early as the 24thJ 
of June, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, commanding the 
First brigade of that division, a man of resolute energy and an ac- 
complished mining engineer, proposed to his division commander 
that he be allowed to run a gallery from this hollow, 

AND BLOW UP THE HOSTILE SALIENT. 

Submitted to Burnside, the venture was approved, and at 12 
o'clock next day, Pleasants began work, selecting for the service 
his own regiment, the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, most of whom 
were miners from the Schuylkill region. But though Burnside 
approved, the Commanding General of the Army of the Potomac 
and the military engineers regarded the scheme from the first with 
ill-concealed derision. Meade and his Chief of Engineers, Duane, 
declared that it was " all clap trap and nonsense " — that the Con- 
federates were certain to discover the enterprise — that working 
parties would be smothered for lack of air or crushed by the fall- 
ing earth — finally, as an unanswerable argument, that a mine of 
such length had never been excavated in military operations. " I 
found it impossible to get assistance from anybody," says Pleasants, 
with an indignation almost pathetic ; " I had to do all the work 
myself." Day after day, night after night, toiling laboriously, 
he came out of the bowels of the earth only to find himself in the 
cold shade of official indifference; yet the undaunted spirit of the 
man refused to yield his undertaking. Mining picks were denied 
him, but he straightened out his army picks and delved on ; he 

* Burnside's report, August 13th, 1364.— Beport on the Conduct of the War (1865;, vol. i, p. 151. 

tib., p. 211. 

X Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants' testimony.— /6., p. 112. 



25 

could get no lumber for supports to his gallery, but he tore down 
an old bridge in rear of the lines and utilized that ; barrows were 
wanting, in which to remove the earth taken from the mine, but he 
bound old cracker-boxes with hoops of iron wrenched from the 
pork-barrels and used them instead ; above all, he needed an accu- 
rate instrument to make the necessary triangulations, and although 
there was a new one at army headquarters, he was forced to send 
to Washington for an old-fashioned theodolite, and make that 
answer his purpose. 

Despite all this and more, he persevered, working on until 

THE BUSY HAMMERING OF THE CONFEDERATES OVERHEAD, 

engaged in laying platforms for their guns, assured him that he 
was well under the doomed salient. 

By July 23d the mine was finished. It consisted of a main 
gallery five hundred and ten and eight-tenths feet in length, with 
lateral galleries right and left, measuring respectivel}'' thirty-eight 
and thirty-seven feet, and forming the segment of a circle concave 
to the Confederate lines.* From mysterious paragraphs in the 
Northern papers and from reports of deserters, though these last 
were vague and contradictory, Lee and Beauregard suspected that 
the enemy was mining in front of some one of the three salients 
on Beauregard's front, and the latter oSicer had, in consequence, 
directed counter-mines to be sunk from all three, meanwhile con- 
structing gorge-lines in rear, upon which the troops might retire in 
case of surprise or disaster. Batteries of eight and ten-inch, and 
Coehorn mortars were also established to assure a cross and front 
fire on the threatened points. But the counter-mining on part of 
the Confederates was after a time discontinued, owing to the lack 
of proper tools, the inexperience of the troops in such work, and 
the arduous nature of their service in the trenches.f 

The mine finished, official brows began to relax, and Pleasants 
asking for 12,000 pounds of powder, got 8,000 and was thankful, 
together with 8,000 sand bags to be used in tamping. On the 27th 
of July, the charge, consisting of 320 kegs of powder, each con- 
taining, 25 pounds, was placed in the mine, and before sunset of 
28th the tamping was finished and the mine ready to be sprung. J 

* All of the foregoing statements regarding construction, &c., of the mine are based oa 
Lieutenant-Colonel Pleasants' official report, August, 1864. 
t Beauregard's MS. report of mine explosion. 
J Pleasants' official report. 



26 

General Grant, meanwhile, in his eagerness for the coveted prize 
so long denied him, resolved to tempt Fortmie by a double throw, 
and not to stake his all upon the venture of a single cast. To this 
end, he dispatched, on the evening of the 26th, Hancock's corps 
and two divisions of horse under Sheridan to the north side of the 
James, with instructions to the former to move up rapidly next day 
to Chaffin's and prevent reinforcements crossing from the south, 
while Sheridan, making a wide sweep to the right, was to attempt 
from the north a surprise of the thinly-garrisoned fortifications of 
Richmond. Meade was to spring the mine and assault from Burn- 
side's front on the same day, General Grant stating in the telegraphic 
order, with 

HIS HABITUAL RELIANCE ON SHEER WEIGHT OF NUMBERS, 

" Your two remaining corps, with the Eighteenth, make you rela- 
tively stronger against the enemy at Petersburg than we have been 
since the first day."* But the cautious Meade replied that he could 
not advise an assault in the absence of the Second corps,t while the 
rough treatment experienced by Sheridan indicated that the Con- 
federate capital was secure against surprise. 

But although the movement north of the James was not, as 
commonly represented, a skilful feint which deceived Lee, but a 
real attempt to surprise Richmond,^ which he thwarted by concen- 
trating heavily on his left, yet to parry the stroke the Confederate 
commander had been compelled so to denude the Petersburg front 
that there was left for its defence but four brigades of Bushrod 
Johnson's division and the divisions of Hoke and Mahone, which 
together with the artillery made up a force of little over 13,000 
effective men.§ 

The conjuncture was still bright with success to the Federals, 
and it being now decided to spring the mine before daylight of the 
30th, Hancock's movement was treated as a feint, and that officer 

* Report 011 the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. 1, p. 45. 

t "I caunot advise an assault with the Second corps absent. • « » It is not the numbers 
of the enemy, which oppose our taking Petersburg; it is their artillery and their works, 
which can be held by reduced numbers against direct assault."— Meade's telegram to Grant, 
July 26th, 1864. 

t General Grant's testimony, " failing on the north bank of the river to surprise the enemy 
as we expected or hoped to Ao."— Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 169. 

§ This estimate is based on the morning report of the Army of Northern Virginia, June 
30th, 1864. It is, perhaps, excessive by a few hundreds. General Grant's information as to 
the Confederate force at Petersburg was entirely accurate.— iJ«por< on the Conduct of the 
War (1865), vol. 1, p. ITO. 



27 

was directed on the night of the 29th to return with all secresy and 
dispatch to take part in the assault, while Sheridan was to pass in 
rear of the army, and with whole cavalry corps operate towards 
Petersburg from the south and west.* 
On the evening of the 29th, 

MEADE ISSUED HIS ORDERS OF BATTLE. 

As soon as it was dusk, Burnside was to mass his troops in front 
of the point to be attacked, and form them in columns of assault, 
taking care to remove the abatis, so that the troops could debouch 
rapidly, and to have his pioneers equipped for opening pasages for 
the artillery. He was to spring the mine at 3.30 A. M., and, 
moving rapidly through the breach, seize the crest of Cemetery 
Hill, a ridge four hundred yards in rear of the Confederate lines. 

Ord was to mass the Eighteenth corps in rear of the Ninth, im- 
mediately follow Burnside and support him on the right. 

Warren was to reduce the number of men holding his front to 
the minimum, concentrate heavily on the right of his corps, and 
support Burnside on the left. Hancock was to mass the Second 
corps in rear of the trenches, at that time held by Ord, and be pre- 
pared to support the assault as events might dictate.f 

Engineer officers were detailed to accompany each corps, and 
the Chief Engineer was directed to park his ponton-train at a con- 
venient point, ready to move at a moment's warning, for Meade, 
having assured himself that the Confederates had no second line 
on Cemetery Hill, as he had formerly supposed and as Duane had 
positively reported,^ was now sanguine of success, and made these 
preparations to meet the contingency of the meagre Confederate 
force retiring beyond the Appomattox and burning the bridges; in 
which event, he proposed to push immediately across that river 
and Swift Creek and open up communication with Butler at Ber- 
muda Hundred before Lee could send any reinforcements from his 
five divisions north of the James. § 

To cover the assault, the Chief of Artillery was to concentrate a 
heavy fire on the Confederate batteries commanding the salient and 
its approaches, and to this end, eighty-one heavy guns and mortars 

*Swinton, A. P., p. 520. 

t Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 221. 

tlb., pp. 43, 44. 

§ Meade's testimony. — Jb., p. 75. 



28 

and over eighty light guns were placed in battery on that imme- 
diate front.* Burnside had urged that 

FERRERO'S NEGRO DIVISION SHOULD LEAD THE ATTACK, 

declaring that it was superior in morale to the white divisions of 
his corps, but in this he was overruled by Meade and Grant.f He 
therefore permitted the commanders of the white divisions to 
"draw straws" as to who should claim the perilous honor, and, 
Fortune favoring the Confederates, the exacting duty fell to Gene- 
ral Ledlie, an officer unfitted by nature to conduct any enterprise 
requiring skill or courage.^ 

This settled, Burnside, in his turn, issued his orders of assault.§ 

Ledlie was to push through the breach straight to Cemetery 
Hill. 

Wilcox was to follow, and, after passing the breach, deploy on 
the left of the leading division and seize the line of the Jerusalem 
Plank Road. 

Potter was to pass to the right of Ledlie and protect his flank, 
while Ferrero's Negro Division^ should Ledlie effect a lodgment on 
Cemetery Hill, was to push beyond that point and immediately assault 
the town. 

Long before dawn of the 30th, the troops were in position, and 
at half-past three, punctually to the minute, the mine was fired. 

THEN THE NEWS PASSED SWIFTLY DOWN THE LINES, 

and the dark columns, standing in serried masses, awaited in dread 
suspense the signal — knowing that death awaited many on yonder 
crest, yet not animated by the stern joy of coming fight, nor yet 
resolved that though Death stalked forth with horrid mien from 
the dreadful breach, it should be but to greet Victory. 

Minute followed minute of anxious waiting — a trial to even the 
most determined veterans — and now 

THE EAST WAS STREAKED WITH GRAY, 

yet the tender beauty of the dim tranquility remained unvexed of 
any sound of war, save one might hear a low hum amid the dark- 



• statement of General Hunt, Chief of Artillery, Army of Potomac — Rep<jit on the Conduct 
of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 184; of Colonel H. L. Abbot— /6., p. 198. 

t For Burnside's proposal regarding the negro troops— i&., pp. IT, 18; overruled by Meade 
and Grant— /6., p. 145; cf. specially—/?)., p. 223. 

t General Grant says : "The lot happened to fall om what I thought was the worst com- 
mander In his corps."— 76., p. 110. See further on. 

}/&., p. 243. 



29 

ling swarm as grew the wonder at delay. Nor was the cause of 
hindrance easy to ascertain ; for should it prove that the fuze was 
still alight, burning but slowly, to enter the mine was certain 
death. Thus time dragged slowly on, telegram upon telegram of 
inquiry meanwhile pouring in from Meade, who, unmindful of the 
dictum of Napoleon, that "in assaults a general should be with 
his troops," had fixed his headquarters full a mile away.* But these 
were all unheeded, for Burnside knew not what to answer. 

Then it was that two brave men, whose names should be men- 
tioned with respect wherever courage is honored, Lieutenant Jacob 
Douty and Sergeant Henry Rees, both of the Forty-eighth Pennsyl- 
vania, volunteered for the perilous service and entered the mine. 
Crawling on their hands and knees, groping in utter darkness, they 
found that the fuze had gone out about fifty feet from the mouth 
of the main gallery, relighted it, and retired. "In eleven minutes 
now the mine will explode," Pleasants reports to Burnside at 
thirty-three minutes past four, and a small group of ofliicers of the 
Forty-eighth, standing upon the slope of the main parapets, anx- 
iously await the result. 

"It lacks a minute yet," says Pleasants, looking at his watch. 

"Not a second," cries Douty ,t 

"for there she goes." 

A slight tremor of the earth for a second, then the rocking as of 
an earthquake, and with a tremendous burst which rent the sleep- 
ing hills beyond, a vast column of earth and smoke shoots upward 
to a great height, its dark sides flashing out sparks of fire, hangs 
poised for a moment in mid-air, and then hurtling downward with 
a roaring sound showers of stones, broken timbers, and blackened 
human limbs, subsides — the gloomy pall of darkening smoke 
flushing to an angry crimson as it floats away to meet the morning 
sun. 

PLEASANTS HAS DONE HIS WORK WITH TERRIBLE COMPLETENESS, 

for now the site of the Elliott Salient is marked by a horrid chasm, 
one hundred and thirty-five feet in length, ninety-seven feet in 
breadth, and thirty feet deep, and its brave garrison, all asleep, 
save the guards, when thus surprised by sudden death, lie buried 

♦Meade's own statement— Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 72. Cf. also 
General Warren's statement— 76., p. 169. 
t Grant and His Campaigns, p. 369. 



30 

beneath the jagged blocks of blackened clay — in all, 256 officers 
and men of the Eighteenth and Twenty-second South Carolina — 
two officers and twenty men of Pegram's Petersburg Battery.* 

The dread upheaval has rent in twain Elliott's brigade, and the 
men to the right and left of the huge abyss recoil in terror and 
dismay. Nor shall we censure them, for so terrible was the ex- 
plosion that even the assaulting column shrank back aghast, and 
nearly ten minutes elapsed ere it could be reformed.! 

NOW A STORM OF FIRE 

bursts in red fury from the Federal front, and in an instant all the 
valley between the hostile lines lies shrouded in billowing smoke. 
Then Marshall, putting himself at the head of the stormers, sword 
in hand, bids his men to follow. 

But there comes no response befitting the stern grandeur of the 
scene — no trampling charge — no rolling drums of Austerlitz — no 
fierce shouts of warlike joy as burst from the men of the "Light 
Division " when they mounted the breach of Badajos, or from 
Frazer's " Royals "' as they crowned the crimson slopes of St. Se- 
bastian. 

No, none of this is here. But a straggling line of the men of 
the Second brigade. First division, uttering a mechanical cheer, 
slowly mounts the crest, passes unmolested across the intervening 
space,! ^^d true to the instinct fostered by long service in the 
trenches, plunges into the crater, courting the friendly shelter of 
its crumbling sides. 

Yonder lies Cemetery Hill in plain view, naked of men.§ and, hard 
beyond, the brave old town, nestling whitely in its wealth of green. 

Silence still reigned along the Confederate lines, yet Ledlie's 
men did not advance, and now the supporting brigade of the same 
division running forward over the crest, and with an incredible 
folly crowding in upon their comrades, already huddled together in 
the shelving pit, all regimental and company organization was lost, 
and the men speedily passed from the control of their officers.|| 

* Beauregard's MS. Report of Mine Explosion ; Lieutenant-Colonel Lorlng's statement. 

t statement of General O. B. Wilcox, U. S. A.— Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. 
i, p. 79 ; BurnsKle's testimony— 76., p. 147. 

X Grant, Meade, Potter, Duane and others testify to this effect.— 76., pp. 36, S7, 110, 116. 

§ Statement of Captain F. U. Farquhar, U. S. Engineers: "There was not a soul between 
the Crater and that position, and I believe that position was the objective point of the as- 
eault"- 76., p. 211 ; of. testimony of other officers- 7&. 

B See testimony of General Grant— 76., p. 110; Meade, p. 36 ; Pleasants, p. 116. As regards 
the men passing from control of their officers, see statement of Lieutenant-Colonel Loring — 
lb., p. 92 ; General Hartranft, p. 190. 



31 

If we except Elliott, who with the remnant of his brigade was 
■occupying the ravine to the left and rear of the Crater, no officer 
of rank was present on the Confederate side to assume immediate 
direction of affairs, and a considerable time elapsed before Beaure- 
gard and Lee — both beyond the Appomattox — were informed by 
Colonel Paul, of Beauregard's staff", of the nature and locality of 
the disaster. 

But almost on the moment, 

JOHN HASKELL, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

a glorious young battalionc-ommander, whose name will be forever 
associated with the artillery corps of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, galloped to the front, followed by two light batteries, and 
having disposed these pieces along the Plank Road, and opened 
Flanner's light guns from the Gee House, passed to his left to 
speak a word of cheery commendation to Lampkin of his battalion, 
who was already annoying the swarming masses of the enemy with 
his Virginia battery of eight-inch mortars. Passing through the 
covered-way, Haskell sought Elliott, and pointing out to him the 
defenceless position of the guns on the Plank Road, urged him to 
make such dispositions as would aff"ord them protection. Essay- 
ing this, Elliot sprang forward, followed by a mere handful of 
brave fellows, but almost on the instant fell stricken by a grievous 
hurt and was borne from his last field of battle. 

The fire of the enemy's artillery was now very severe, owing , to 
their superior weight of metal, and the guns on the Plank Road, 
exposed in addition to the fire of sharp-shooters, were suff'ering such 
loss that it was determined to retire all but six pieces, and, as the 
situation seemed rather hopeless, to call for volunteers to man 
these. To Haskell's proud delight, ever}'- gun-detachment volun- 
teered to remain. 

Nor did the artillery to the right and left fail to bear themselves 
with the resolution of men conscious that, for the time, the hope of 
the army was centred in their steadiness, and that 

THEIR GUNS ALONE BARRED THE ROAD TO PETERSBURG; 

for, let me repeat. Cemetery Hill was naked of men. The officers 
of one battery, indeed, misbehaved, but these were promptly spurn- 
ed aside, and the very spot of their defection made glorious by the 
heroic conduct of Hampton Gibbs of the artillery and Sam Pres- 
ton of Wise's brigade, both of whom fell desperately wounded — 



32 

while spurring hard from the hospital, with the fever still upon 
him, came Hampden Chamberlayne, a young artillery officer of 
Hill's corps, who so handled these abandoned guns that from that 
day the battery bore his name, and he wore another bar upon his 
collar.* 

Wright, of Halifax, opened too a withering fire from his light 
guns posted on a hill to the left, nor could he be silenced by the 
enemy's batteries, for his front was covered by a heavy fringe of 
pinesf; and now the eight-inch mortars in rear of Wright, and 
Langhorne's ten-inch mortars, from the Baxter road, took part in 
the dreadful chorus. 

On the Federal side, Griffin of Potter's division, not waiting for 
Wilcox, pushed forward his brigade, and gained ground to the 
north of the Crater, and Bliss' brigade of the same division, com- 
ing to his support, still further ground was gained in that direc- 
tion. J But his leading regiments, deflected by the hostile fire, bore to 
their left, and mingling with Ledlie's men swarming along the 
sides of the great pit, added to the confusion. Wilcox now threw 
forward a portion of his division and succeeded in occupying 
about one hundred and fifty yards of the works south of the Cra- 
ter, but estopped by the fire of Chamberlayne's guns, and, when- 
ever occasion offered, by the fire of the infantry, his men on the 
exposed flank gave ground, and pushing the right regiments into 
the Crater, the confusion grew worse confounded. Some of the 
m^n, indeed, from fear of suffocation, had already emerged from 
the pit and spread themselves to the right and left, but this was a 
matter of danger and difficulty, for the ground was scored with 
covered-ways and traverses, honey-combed with bomb-proofs, and 
swept by the artillery. Others of them pressed forward and got 
into the ditch of the unfinished gorge-lines, while not a few, creep- 
ing along the glacis of the exterior line, made their way over the 
parapet into the main trench. In all this, there was much hand-to- 
hand fighting, for many men belonging to the dismembered bri- 

* As regards the execution of Chamberlayne's guns, see especially statement of General 
Warren— iJciJori on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 166 ; General Hunt, pp. 98, 184 ; 
Duane, p. 100 ; and others. For general efficiency of the artillery fire, see Meade's Report, 
August 16th, 1864— i6., p. 31; Colonel Loring's statement— 7b., p. 95; General Potter, p. 177, 

t Statement of General Potter— i 6., p. 87. Cf. statement of other Federal officers— 76. 

tBurnside's official report, August 13th, 1864. Colonel Bliss, commanding First brigade. 
Second division, "remained behind with the only regiment of his brigade whicli did not go 
forward according to orders " — Opinion of the Court of Inquiry. — Report on the Conduct of 
the War (1865), vol. 1, p. 217. 



33 

gade still found shelter behind the traverses and bomb-proofs, and 
did not easily yield.* 

Meanwhile, General Meade, 

" GROPING IN THE DARK," 

to use his own phrase,t sent telegram upon telegram to Burnside to 
know how fared the day, but received answer to none. At fifteen 
minutes to six, however, one hour after Ledlie's men had occupied 
the breach, an orderly delivered to him a note in pencil, written 
from the Crater by Colonel Loring, Inspector-General of the Ninth 
corps, and addressed to General Burnside. This was Meade's first 
information from the front and was little cheering, for Loring stated 
briefly that Ledlie's men were in confusion and would not go for- 
ward.| 

Ord was now directed to push forward the Eighteenth corps, and 
the following dispatch was sent to Burnside: 

Headquarters Army of the Potomac, 
July 30th, 18G4, 6 A. M. 
Major-General Burnside : 

Prisoners taken say that there is no line in their rear, and that 
their men were falling back when ours advanced; that none of their 
troops have returned from the James. Our chance is now. Push 
your men forward at all hazards, white and black, and don't lose 
time in making formations, but rush for the crest. 

George G. Meade, 
Major- General Commanding. 

But Ord could not advance, for the narrow debouches were still 
choked up by the men of the Ninth corps and by the wounded 
borne from the front, and although Burnside promptly transmitted 
the order to his subordinates, the troops in rear moved with reluc- 
tant step, while no general of division was present with those ia 
front to urge them forward.§ 

Again did Meade telegraph to Burnside : " Every moment is 
most precious ; the enemy are undoubtedly concentrating to meet 
you on the crest." But not until twenty minutes past seven, did he 
receive a reply, and then briefly to the effect that Burnside " hoped 
to carry the crest, but that it was hard work." 

* For all statements in above paragraph, cf. Report on the Conduct of the War (1S65), vol. i, 
pp. 21, 92, 94, 96, 1'21, 157, 1T7, 201. 

t " I have been groping in the dark since the commencement of the attack "—Meade. — Fb., 
p. 71. 

Xlh., p. 53. 

§See testimony of General Ord— /6., pp. 172, 173 ; General Grant, p. 110; cf. also, Ih., pp^ 
197, 210. For state of debouches, see Ord's official report, August 3, 1S64— ib., p. 101. 



34 

Then Meade's patience seems fairly to have broken down. " What 
do you mean by hard work to take the crest? " he asks, 

" I understand not a man has advanced beyond the enemy's line 
which you occupied immediately after exploding the mine. Do 
you mean to say your officers and men will not obey your orders 
to advance ? If not, what is the obstacle ? I wish to know the truth, 
and desire an immediate answer." "George G. Meade, 

Major- General. ' ' 

To which Burnside, in hot wrath, straight-way replied : 

Headquarters Ninth Corps, 
7.35 A. M. 
General Meade : 

Your dispatch by Captain Jay received. The main body of 
General Potter's division is beyond the Crater. 

I do not mean to say that my officers and men will not obey my 
orders to advance. I mean to say that it is very hard to advance 
to the crest. I have never in any report said anything different 
from what I conceived to be the truth. Were it not insubordinate, 
I would say that the latter remark of your note was unofficerlike 
and ungentlemanly. A. E. Burnside, 

Major- General. 

Griffin, it is true, in obedience to orders to advance straight for 
Cemetery Hill, had during this time attempted several charges from 
his position north of the Crater, but his men displayed little spirit, 
and, breaking speedily under the fire of the artillery, sought their 
old shelter behind the traverses and covered ways.* The rest of 
Potter's division moved out but slowly, and it was fully 8 o'clock — f 
more than three hours after the explosion — when Ferrero's Negro Di- 
vision, the men beyond question inflamed with drink, J burst from the 
advanced lines, cheering vehemently, passed at a double-quick over 
the crest under a heavy fire, and rushing with scarce a check over 
the heads of the white troops in the Crater, spread to their right, 
capturing more than two hundred prisoners and one stand of 
colors.§ At the same moment. Turner of the Tenth corps pushed 
forward a brigade over the Ninth corps parapets, seized the Con- 
federate line still further to the north, and quickly disposed the re- 
maining brigades of his division to confirm his success. || 

* Report on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, pp. 96, 223 (Meade'3 dispatch, 8 A. M. July 
30th). 

fib., pp.103, 195,196. 

t There are many living officers and men, myself among the number, who will testify to 
this. 

§ lb., pp. 96, 109. 

I General Turner's statement.— /&., p. 121. 



35 

NOW WAS THE CRISIS OF THE DAY, 

and fortunate was it for maiden and matron of Petersburg, that 
even at this moment that there was filing into the ravine between 
Cemetery Hill and the drunken battalions of Ferrero, a stern array of 
silent men, clad in faded gray, resolved with grim resolve to avert 
from the mother-town a fate as dreadful as that which marked the 
three days' sack of Badajos. 

Lee, informed of the disaster at 6.10 A. M.,* had bidden his aide, 
Colonel Charles Venable, to ride quickly to the right of the army 
and bring up two brigades of Anderson's old division, com- 
manded hf Mahone, for time was too precious to observe military 
etiquette and send the orders through Hill. Shortly after, the 
General-in-Chief reached the front in person, and all men took 
heart when they descried the grave and gracious face, and " Trav- 
eller " stepping proudly, as if conscious that he bore upon his back 
the weight of a nation. Beauregard was already at the Gee House, 
a commanding position five hundred yards in rear of the Crater, 
and Hill had galloped to the right to organize an attacking column,t 
and had ordered down Pegram, and even now the light batteries of 
Brander and Ellett were rattling through the town at a sharp trot, 
with cannoniers mounted, the sweet, serene face of their boy- 
colonel lit up with that glow which to his men meant hotly-im- 
pending fight, 

Venable had sped upon his mission, and found 

mahone's men already standing to their arms; 

but the Federals, from their lofty "look-outs," were busily inter- 
changing signals, and to uncover such a length of front without 
exciting observation, demanded the nicest precaution. Yet was this 
difficulty overcome by a simple device, for the men being ordered 
to drop back one by one, as if going for water, obeyed with such 
intelligence, that Warren continued to report to Meade that not a 
man had left his front.J 

* The hour is taken from the note-book of the staff-officer who delivered the message from 
Beauregard to Lee, and who noted the exact time at the moment. This note-book was kindly 
placed at my disposal. 

t Statement of Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Palmer, chief-of-staff to General Hill. 

t The device was, of course, Mahone's. General Meade says : Generals Hancock and War- 
ren "sent me reports that the enemy's lines in their front were strongly held, * * * that 
the enemy had sent away none of their troops in their front, and it was impossible to do any- 
thing there."— JReport on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. 1, p. T. General Warren appears 
to have been hard to convince, for as late as Dec. 20th, 1864, he testifies that he is "quite well 
satisfied that they (the enemy in his immediate front) did not take part in the attack."— /6., 
p. 82. 

3 



36 

Then forming in the ravine to the rear, the men of the Virginia 
and Georgia brigades came pressing down the valley with swift, 
swinging stride — not with the discontented bearing of soldiers 
whose discipline alone carries them to what they feel to be a scene 
of fruitless sacrifice, but with the glad alacrity and aggressive ardor 
of men impatient for battle, and who, from long knowledge of war, 
are conscious that Fortune has placed within their grasp an oppor- 
tunity which, by the magic touch of veteran steel, may be trans- 
formed to " swift- winged victory." 

Halting for a moment in rear of the "Ragland House," Mahone 
bade his men strip off blankets and knapsacks and prepare for 
battle. 

Then riding quickly to the front, while the troops marched in 
single file along the covered-way, he drew rein at Bushrod Johnson's 
head-quarters, and reported in person to Beauregard. Informed 
that Johnson would assist in the attack with the outlying troops 
about the Crater, he rode still further to the front, dismounted, and 
pushing along the covered-way from the Plank Road, came out into 
the ravine, in which he afterwards formed his men. Mounting the 
embankment at the head of the covered-way, he descried within 
160 yards 

A FOREST OF GLITTERING BAYONETS, 

and beyond, floating proudly from the captured works, eleven 
Union flags. Estimating rapidly from the hostile colors the 
probable force in his front, he at once dispatched his courier to 
bring up the Alabama brigade from the right,* assuming thereby a 
grave responsibility, yet was the wisdom of the decision vindicated 
by the event. 

Scarcely had the order been given, when the head of the Virginia 
brigade began to debouch from the covered-way. Directing Colo- 
nel Weisiger, its commanding officer, to file to the right and form 
line of battle, Mahone stood at the angle, speaking quietly and 
cheerily to the men. Silently and quickly they moved out, and 
formed with that precision dear to every soldier's eye — the Sharp- 
shooters leading, followed by the Sixth, Sixteenth, Sixty-first, Forty- 
first, and Twelfth Virginiaf — the men of Second Manassas and 
Crampton's Gap ! 

*This was "Jimmy Blakemore," well known iu the Army of Northern Virginia as one of 
the most gallant lads In the service. In critical events Mahone would entrust to him the 
most important messages, and in no instance did he fail him. 

t The Virginia brigade moved np left in front, which accounts for the order of the regi- 
ments. Before moving out of the covered-way, each regiment was counter-marched on ita 



37 

But one caution was given — to reserve their fire until they reached 
the brink of the ditch ; but one exhortation — tliat they were counted 
on to do this work, and do it quickly. 

Now the leading regiment of the Georgia brigade began to move 
out, when suddenly a brave Federal officer, seizing the colors, called 
on his men to charge. Descrying this hostile movement on the 
instant, Weisiger, a veteran of stern countenance which did not 
belie the personal intrepidity of the man,* uttered to the Virginians 
the single word — 

FORWARD, 

Then the Sharpshooters and the men of the Sixth on the right, 
running swiftly forward, for theirs was the greater distance to tra- 
verse, the whole line sprang along the crest, and there burst from 
more than eight hundred warlike voices that fierce yell which no 
man ever yet heard unmoved on field of battle. Storms of case- 
shot from the right mingled with the tempest of bullets which 
smote upon them from the front, yet was there no answering volley, 
for these were veterans, whose fiery enthusiasm had been wrought 
to a finer temper by the stern code of discipline, and even in the 
tumult the men did not forget their orders. Still pressing forward 
with steady fury, while the enemy, appalled by the inexorable 
advance, gave ground, they reached the ditch of the inner works — 

THEN ONE VOLLEY CRASHED FROM THE WHOLE LINE, 

and the Sixth and Sixteenth, with the Sharpshooters, clutching 
their empty guns and redoubling their fierce cries, leaped over the 
retrenched-cavalier, and all down the line the dreadful work of the 
bayonet began. 

How long it lasted none may say with certainty, for in those 

own ground. Singularly enough, the enemy also moved forward left In front.— Cf. Report on 
the Conduct of the War, p. 193. 

* " Captain Hinton came up and reported that he had reported to General Mahone as directed , 
who said that I must await orders from him or Captain Girardey (who was then acting ou 
Mahone's staff.) A few moments later Girardey came up to us. Just at that time I saw a 
Federal officer leap from the works with a stand of colors in his hand, aad at last fifty or 
more men with him, as I supposed purposing to charge us. I repeated my orders to Girardy 
and told him that if we did not move forward promptly all would be lost. He agreed with 
me, and 1 then requested him to report to Mahone the circumstances and that I had moved 
forward. I then gave the command, " Attention," " Forward." The men sprang to their 
feet and moved forward at a double-quick, reserving their fire, as ordered, until within a few 
feet of the enemy, when they delivered a galling fire and then used the bayonet freely."— Af.S'. 
Report of Brigadier-General D. A. Weisiger. Statement of Captain D. A. Ilinton, A. D. C. 
Adjutant Hugh Smith and other officers. General S. G. Griffin, U. S. Volunteers, says : "The 
rebels made a very desperate attack at this time." — Report on the Conduct of the War (1S65), 
vol. i, p. 188. 



38 

fierce moments no man heeded time, no man asked, no man gave 
quarter ; but in an incredibly brief space, as seemed to those who 
looked on, the whole of the advanced line north of the Crater was 
retaken, the enemy in headlong flight,* and the tattered battle-flags 
planted along the parapets from left to right, told Lee at the Gee 
House that from this nettle danger, valor had plucked the flower, 
safety for an army. 

Redoubling the sharpshooters on his right, Mahone kept down 
all fire from the Crater, the vast rim of which frowned down upon 
the lower line occupied by his troops. 

And now the scene within the horrid pit was such as might be 
fitly portrayed only by the pencil of Dante after he had trod " nine- 
circled Hell." From the great mortars to the right and left, huge 
missiles, describing graceful curves, fell at regular intervals with 
dreadful accuracy and burst among the helpless masses huddled 
together, and every explosion was followed by piteous cries, and 
often-times the very air seemed darkened by flying human limbs. 
Haskell, too, had moved up his Eprouvette mortars among the men 
of the Sixteenth Virginia — so close, indeed, that his powder-charge 
was but one ounce and a half — and, without intermission, the storm 
of fire beat upon the hapless men imprisoned within. 

Mahone's men watched with great interest this easy method oi 
reaching troops behind cover, and then, with the imitative ingenuity 
of soldiers, gleefully gathered up the countless muskets with bayo- 
nets fixed, which had been abandoned by the enemy, and propelled 
them with such nice skill that they came down upon Ledlie's men 
" like the rain of the Norman arrows at Hastings." 

At half-past ten, the Georgia brigade advanced and attempted to 
dislodge Wilcox's men, who still held a portion of the lines south 
of the Crater, but so closely was every inch of the ground searched 
by artillery, so biting was the fire of musketry, that, obliquing to 

*Ib., pp. 21, 121, 208. General Ayres, U. S. Volunteers, says : " I saw the negroes coming back 
to the rear like a land-slide." — lb., p. 165. General Ferrero, the commander of the Negro Di- 
vision, who was censured by the Court of Inquiry for " being in a bomb-proof habitually" 
(p. 216) on this day, also testifles emphatically to the disorderly flight, but scarcely much 
weight can be attached to his statements unless corroborated by others. On Aug. 31, 1S64, 
excusing the behavior of his troops, he testifies : "I would add that my troops are raw troops, 
and never had lieen drilled two weeks from the day they entered the service till that day.'' — 
lb., p. 181. On Dec. 20th, 18G4, he testifles: (my troops) "were in flue condition— better than 
any other troops in the army for that purpose. We were expecting to make this assault, and 
had drilled /or weeks and were in good trim for it."— il>., p. 106. Perhaps his excuse for this 
discrepancy of statement may be that of the notorious Trenck of the Life Guards, who, 
when reproached for his mendacity about the battle of Sohr, cried out : " Uow could I help 
mistakes ? I had nothing but my poor agitated memory to trust X.o."—Carlyle's Friedrich, 
vol. vi, p. 9T. 



39 

their left, they sought cover behind the cavalier-trench won by the 
Virginia brigade — many officers and men testifying by their blood 
how gallantly the venture had been essayed. 

Half an hour later, the Alabamians under Saunders arrived, but 
further attack was postponed until after 1 P. M., in order to arrange 
for co-operation from Colquitt on the right. Sharply to the minute 
agreed upon, the assaulting line moved forward, and with such 
astonishing rapidity did these glorious soldiers rush across the 
intervening space that ere their first wild cries subsided, their battle- 
flags had crowned the works.* The Confederate batteries were now 
ordered to cease firing, and forty volunteers were called for to as- 
sault the Crater, but so many of the Alabamians offered themselves 
for the service, that the ordinary system of detail was necessary. 
Happily, before the assaulting party could be formed, a white 
handkerchief, made fast to a ramrod, was projected above the edge 
of the Crater, and, after a brief pause, a motley mass of prisoners 
poured over the side and ran for their lives to the rear. 

In this grand assault on Lee's lines, for which Meade had massed 
65,000t troops, the enemy suffered a loss of above 5,000 men, in- 
cluding 1,101 prisoners, among whom were two brigade comman- 
ders, while vast quantities of small arms and twenty-one standards 
fell into the hands of the victors.^ 

Yet many brave men perished on the Confederate side. Elliott's 
brigade lost severely in killed and prisoners. The Virginia brigade, 
too, paid the price which glory ever exacts. The Sixth carried in 
98 men and lost 88, one company — "the dandies," of course — "Old 
Company F" of Norfolk, losing every man killed or wounded.§ 

* After the recovery of the lines north of the Crater, Meade determined to withdraw all 
his troops. The order was given at 9.30 A. M., but Burnside was authorized to use his dis- 
cretion as to the exact hour, and it was nearly 12 M. before the order was sent into the Crater. 
Of course, no one knew this on the Confederate side, and the fact can in no way detract from 
the splendid conduct of the Alabamians, but it accounts in great measure for the slight re- 
sistance they encountered. See Report on the Conduct of the War (1SC5), vol. i, pp. 58, 15T. 
General Hartranft's statement is very naive as to the conclusion he reached when he saw the 
Alabamians rushing forward with their wild cries : " This assaulting column of the enemy 
came up, and we concluded— General Griffin and myself— «/;«« there loas no use in holding it 
(the Crater) any longer, and so we retired."— i6., p. 190. 

t "General Burnside's corps, of 15,000 men, was * * * to rush through and get on the 
crest beyond. I prepared a force of from 40,000 to 50,000 men to take advantage of our suc- 
cess gained by General Burnside's corps."— Meade —76., p. 37. 

t After carefully analyzing all the Federal reports. General Mahone put the loss of the 
enemy at 5,240 ; Cannon {GranVs Campaign Against Richmond, p. 245) at 5,fi40 ; General Meade 
(Report of August 16th, 1S64) puts loss at 4,400 in A. P. and ISth corps, but does not give loss 
In Turner's division, 10th corps. 

§ Company K, of Sixth Virginia, can-ied in sixteen men ; eight were killed outright and 
seven wounded. The small number of men carried into the light by the Sixth is explained 
by the fact that quite half the regiment was on picket on the old front (on the right), and 



40 

Scarcely less was the loss in other regiments. The Sharpshooters 
carried in 80 men and lost 64 — among the slain their commander, 
William Broadbent, a man of prodigious strength and activity, 
who, leaping first over the works, fell pierced by eleven bayonet- 
wounds — a simple captain, of whom we may say, as was said of 
Kidge : " No man died that day with more glory, yet many died 
and there was much glory." 

Such was the battle of the Crater, which excited the liveliest 
satisfaction throughout the army and the country. Mahone was 
created Major-General from that date ; Weisiger, who was wounded, 
Brigadier-General ; Captain Girardey, of Mahone's staff, also Bri- 
gadier — the latter an extraordinary but just promotion, for he was 
a young officer whose talents and decisive vigor qualified him to 
conduct enterprises of the highest moment ; yet fate willed that his 
career should be brief, for within a fortnight he fell in battle north 
of the James, his death dimming the joy of victory. 

On the Federal side, crimination and recrimination followed 
what General Grant styled " this miserable failure." There was a 
Court of Inquiry, and a vast array of dismal testimony, which dis- 
closed the fact that of four generals of division belonging to the 
assaulting corps, not one had followed his men into the Confederate 
lines.* Nay, that the very commander of the storming division, 
finding, like honest Nym, "the humor of the breach too hot," was 
at the crisis of the fight palpitating in a bomb-proof, beguiling a 
Michigan surgeon into giving him a drink of rum, on the plea that 
"he had the malaria, and had been struck by a spent balP'f — le- 
gends of a hoary antiquity, whereof, let us humbly confess, we our- 
selves have heard. 

Three weeks of comparative quiet followed along the Petersburg 
front, yet, during this time many brave men fell unnoticed in the 
trenches, for there was no change in the proximity of the hostile 
lines, and the dropping fire of the pickets by day, and fiery curves 
of mortar-shell by night, told that the portentous game of war still 
went on. 

could not be withdrawn. The 41st Virginia lost otie-four t h ita number; the Cist within a 
fraction of half its number. The loss in the 16th was nearly as great as in the 6th propor- 
tionally, but I have been unable to get the exact figures in that regiment and in the 12th. 

* General Grant's statement— iJe^iort on the Conduct of the War (1865), vol. i, p. 110. See 
also finding of Court of Inquiry— 76., p. 216. 

tThe testimony of Surgeon O. P. Chubb, 20th Michigan {lb., p. 191), and of Surgeon H. 
E. Smith, 27th Michigan (lb., p. 206), is certainly very lively reading. Surgeon Smith is unable 
to say how often the doughty warriors, Ledlie and Ferrero, " smiled " at each other, for " I 
was not in the bomb-proof all the while that they were there. It was perfectly safe in there, 
but it might not liave been outside. I had to go out to look after the wounded "-/ft., p. 20T. 



41 

Never was the Army of Northern Virginia more defiant in its 
bearing — never more confident in the genius of its leader. De- 
serters pouring into our lines brought consistent reports of the 
demoralization of the enemy — gold rose to 2.90, the highest point 
it touched during the war — while from the west and certain States 
in the North the clamors for peace redoubled, the New York Herald 
being loudest in demanding that an embassy be sent to Richmond, 
" in order to see if this dreadful war cannot be ended in a mutually 
satisfactory treaty of peace."* 

"An army," says the great Frederick, " moves upon its belly," 
and I am not prepared to say that the jaunty bearing of Lee's men, 
as " shrewdly out of beef " at this time as ever were the English at 
Agincourt, was not due in a measure to the fact that just then 
their eyes were gladdened by droves of fat cattle sent them by an 
old comrade — Lieutenant-General Jubal Early, who, without the 
trifling formality of a commission from Governor Curtin, had as- 
sumed the duties of Acting Commissary-General of the rich Com- 
monwealth of Pennsylvania.f 

We have seen that shortly after Grant's arrival in front of Peters- 
burg, there was open to him " a swarm of fair advantages," for his 
sujDerb line of formidable redoubts, capable of assured defence by 
a fraction of his force, made it possible for him to operate on either 
Confederate flank with the bulk of his army, or, should the con- 
juncture favor, to assault in front. 

But now, tenacious of purpose as was the Union general, he had, 
according to his own explicit testimony, J satisfied himself that an 
attack on Richmond from the north side would be attended with 
frightful loss of life — he had just received humiliating proof that 
Lee's front could not be shaken by mining or assault — and thence- 
forward the campaign narrowed itself to a continuous effort to 
turn the Confederate right and cut Lee's communications — a series 
of rough strokes parried with infinite skill, although at times the 
"Thor-hammer" beat down the guard of the slender rapier, which 
so often pierced the joints of the giant armor. 

By the end of August, Grant was firmly established across the 
Weldon road — a line of communication important, indeed, to Lee, 

* I have collected a great number of sucli excerpts from leading Northern and Western 
papers (1S64), as being not without significance. Certainly no such utterances would have 
been tolerated in 1861-62. 

t Later (September 16th, 1S64), Hampton made his brilliant "cattle raid," in rear of the 
Army of Potomac, in which he inflicted considerable loss on the enemy in killed and wounded, 
and brought off above 300 prisoners and 2,500 beeves— Lcc's Official Dispatch. 

t Report on Conduct of the ^Yar (1S65), vol. i, p. 110. 



42 

but not absolutely necessary. Yet was it not yielded without much 
desperate fighting, as was witnessed by the sharp "affair" of August 
18th, favorable to the Confederates, who were commanded by Gen. 
Harry Heth ; by the brilliant action of Aug. 19th, in which the troops 
were immediately commanded by Heth and Mahone (the brunt 
of the fighting falling on Heth's division and Pegram's artillery), 
and in which the enemy sustained a loss of many standards and 
above 2,700 prisoners ; by the battle of August 21st, in which 
Mahone failed to dislodge the enemy, for, attacking with six small 
brigades, and twelve guns under Pegram, he encountered, instead 
of the weak flank his scouts had led him to expect, a heavily- 
entrenched front manned by an army corps, the approaches to 
which were swept by a powerful artillery ;* finally, by 

THE BATTLE OF EEAMS' STATION, 

August 25th, in which 12 stands of colors, 9 pieces of artillery, 10 
caissons, 2,150 prisoners, and 3,100 stands of small arms fell into 
the hands of the victors, who suffered a total loss of but 720 men.f 
This brilliant stroke was delivered by Heth, under the immediate 
eye of A. P. Hill, and was mainly due to the steadiness of tha 
North Carolina troops, for these constituted nearly the whole of 
the assaulting column, and the first colors planted on the hostile 
works were borne by Sergeant Roscoe Richards, Twenty-seventh 
North Carolina, Cooke's brigade, Heth's division. General Lee, 
writing to Governor Vance under date of August 29th, says: "I 
have been frequently called upon to mention the services of North 
Carolina troops in this army, but their gallantry and conduct 
were never more deserving of admiration than in the engage- 
ment at Reams' Station on the 25th instant." Heth, with a 
generosity as characteristic of the man as his taciturn pluck, de- 
clared that he did not believe that the works would have been 
" practicable " for any troops, had not Pegram first shaken the 
position by the terrific fire of his guns, and surely, so long as there 
is left a survivor of that memorable day, the superb conduct of the 
cavalry is not likely to be forgotten. Lee, who weighed his words 
if ever general did, bears emphatic testimony to their gallantry in 

* In this action, the gallant Saunders, who led the Alabamians at the Crater, was killed. 
Immediately on the repulse of his first attack, Mahone carefully reconnoitred, under sharp 
Are, the whole front, and told General Lee that with two more brigades he would pledge 
himself to dislodge Warren before night-fall. The division from which Lee at once con- 
sented to draw the additional support, arrived too late to make the projected attack advisable. 

t A. P. UiU's Official Report. 



43 

his official dispatch, and states that Hampton " contributed largely 
to the success of the da^/."* 

In these four engagements, the enemy acknowledge a loss of above 
7,000 men, and there is reason to believe that the occupation of 
the Weldon road during this month cost them between 8,000 and 
9,000 men. The Confederate loss was not above one-fourth of 
that number.f 

Then followed the severe combats of September 30th and October 
1st — known as " the Battles of the Jones House," in which the 
enemy again lost heavily in prisoners| — after which succeeded a 
period of quiet, broken by several minor " affairs" brought on by 
continuous extension of the Federal left. The Presidential election 
in the North was now near at hand,§ and before settling down into 
winter-quarters. General Grant determined to make one more 
vigorous effort to turn Lee's right, seize the Southside road, and 
compel the evacuation of Petersburg. For this purpose the Federal 
commander concentrated on his left the greater portion of three 
army corps.] 1 and on October 27th, was fought 

THE BATTLE OF HATCHER's RUN, 

an action so confused by reason of the heavily wooded character 
of the country, that it would be impossible for you to follow the 
details without the aid of a map, so I must content myself with 
stating simply that the attempt failed; not forgetting the caution 
to you, however, that so far as concerns the conduct of affairs, and 
the numbers engaged, on the Confederate side, Mr. Swinton's narra- 
tive is a very fallacious guide. 

Once more, Mr. Stanton, who had long preserved silence, appeared 
to chronicle victory, and gold, which ever sympathizes with success, 
rose from 2.I82 to 2.41 — within ten days to 2.57. Nor shall we judge 

Lee's official dispatch, August 26tli, 1864. 

t Tills estimate is based on a careful collation of Federal and Confederate reports. 

t General Cadmus Wilcox in liis report says the enemy's loss on September 30th was "over 
350 killed and about 2,000 prisoners." On October 1st, in his front, " the Federal line was cap- 
tured with 300 prisoners." " My entire loss," he adds, " was 285 ; of this number only 59 were 
killed. In Heth's Ijrigades it was probably less." — Transactions of Southern Historical Societi/, 
A]}ril, 1875. Swiuton (A. P., p. 539.) puts the Federal loss "above twenty-five hundred." 

§ Mr. Edward Lee Childe, usually well-informed, makes a curious blunder on this point. 
He says : " Grant y tenait d' autant plus que I'election presidentielle approchait, et que ses 
chances comnie candidat augmenterait si le succes le designait a 1' admiration de ses con- 
citoyens." — Le General Lee, Sa Vie et ses Campagnes, p. 32T. Following Swiuton (A. P., p. 543), 
he represents Lee as present on the field. At the time of the action, Lee was north of the 
James. Nor was Hill on the field, as Swinton and Childe represent. Both largely overstate 
the numbers concentrated on the Confederate side during the night. 

II Swinton, A. P., p. 540. 



44 

him harshly in this instance, for his bulletin was based upon the 
following dispatch : 

City Point, October 27, 9 P. M. 

I have just returned from the crossing of the Boydton Plank 
Road with Hatcher's creek. At every point the enemy was found 
entrenched and his works manned. No attack was made during 
the day further than to drive the pickets and cavalry inside the 
main works. Our casualties have been light — probably less than 
200. The same is probably true of the enemy. [Later] — The attack 
on Hancock proves to be a decided success. We lost no prisoners 
except the usual stragglers, who are always picked up. 

U. S. Grant. 

General Lee's dispatch is as follows : 

Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, 

-October 28, 1864. 
Honorable Secretary of War : 

General Hill reports that the attack of General Heth upon 
the enemy on the Boydton Plank Road, mentioned in my dispatch 
last evening, was made by three brigades under General Mahone in 
front, and by General Hampton in rear. Mahone captured 400 
prisoners, S stands of colors, and Q pieces of artillery. The latter could 
not be brought off, the enemy having possession of the bridge. In 
the attack subsequently made by the enemy. General Mahone 
broke three lines of battle, and during the night the enemy re- 
treated, leaving his wounded and more than 250 dead on the field. 
[Later] — "The total number of j)risoners, according to General 
Hill's report, is 700." 

R. E. Lee, General. 

A discrepancy of statement which I leave to be reconciled by 
those better equipped for the task than I am, simply remarking 
that a perusal of the war dispatches of General Grant and General 
Sheridan often recalls to one that witty saying of Sidney Smith : 
" Nothing is so deceptive as figures, except — facts." 

On the same day. General Fields, north of the James, captured 
seven stands of colors and above 400 prisoners,* and when it leaked 
out in the New York papers, as it gradually did, that this was no 
mere " advance for the purjDose of reconnoissance," as stated by 
Mr. Stanton in his bulletin, but a grand blow for the capture of 
Petersburg, which had been promptly parried with a loss to the 
Federals of above 3,000 men, who shall wonder that i'ov the time 
the " bulls," and not the bulletins, had the best of it in Wall 
street? From 

* Lee's official dispatch, October 27tli, 1S64. 



45 



THE TRIALS OF THE WINTER 



that followed, History would fain avert her eyes. They were such 
as can never be forgotton by those who watched and waited — such 
as will never be credited by those who shall read the story here- 
after in peace and plenty. To guard the long line of entrenchments 
from the Chickahominy to Hatcher's Run, there was now left but 
a gaunt remnant of that valiant host which had cheered Lee in the 
Wilderness as it passed to victory — which had hurled back nearly 
tlirice its number at Cold Harbor, and wrought humiliation to the 
Army of the Potomac on a score of fields in this vigorous cam- 
paign. 

Living on one-sixth of a ration of corn-meal and rancid pork* — 
remember, men and women of Richmond, that they more than 
once offered to share that little with the starving poor of your 
beautiful city : thinly clad, their bodies indeed shivered under the 
freezing blasts of heaven, but their dauntless spirits cowered not 
under the fiery blasts of war. But there was to be added a pang 
deeper than the pang of hunger, sharper than the rigor of the 
elements or hurt of shot and steel. For now from the cotton-lands 
of Georgia and the rice-fields of Carolina, came borne on every 
blast the despairing cry which wives and little ones raised to 
wintry skies lit by baleful glare of burning homes, and the men of 
the " Old North State " bethought them of the happy homesteads 
which lay straight in the path of the ruthless conqueror, who was 
waging war with an audacious cruelty " capable of dishonoring a 
whole nation." A subtle enemy, till then well-nigh unknown, 
attacked in rear this army which still haughtily held its front, and 
men, with bated breath and cheeks flushing through their bronze, 
whispered the dread word, "desertion." 

The historian, far removed from the joassions of the time, may 
coldly measure out his censure, but we, comrades, bound to these 
men by countless proud traditions, can only cry with the old He- 
brew prophet, "Alas ! my brother! " and remember that these were 
valiant souls, too sorely tried. 

Nor may I venture to jiortray the glorious vicissitudes of 

THE BRIEF CAMPAIGN OF '65. 

Foreign critics have censured Lee, who in February of this year 
was raised to the empty rank of General-in-Chief, because he did 

* This was the case for a considerable time iu Hill's corps. 



46 

not take the commissariat into his own hands and perfect measures 
for the better care of his men; but it is criticism based on imper- 
fect knowledge, for, under General St. John, the commissariat at 
this time reached a creditable state of efficiency,* and these critics 
should not forget that the dictum of the foremost master of the art 
of war is, that "to command an army well, a general must think of 
nothing else." Others have expressed surprise that a soldier of such 
nice foresight should have persisted for so long a time in endeavor- 
ing to maintain lines of such extent with a force constantly de- 
creasing, ill fed and poorly clad; but surely they have failed to 
remember how often in war the sun of military genius has been 
obscured by the mists of politics. 

Too late was evacuation determined upon, and on March 25th 
Gordon made his brilliant assault against the Federal right — a 
daring stroke, indeed, but the daring of wisdom and not the rash- 
ness of ignoble despair, for by this means alone could Lee hope to 
force Grant to draw in his left flank, which menaced the proposed 
line of retreat. 

How Gordon's sudden blow was at first crowned with success; 
how his guides ran away and left his storming columns groping in 
ignorance ;t how his supports failed to reach him; how, in short, a 
moody fortune defeated the accomplishment of the bold plan — 
how later, when, to use Lee's own phrase, "the line stretched so 
long as to break," the great commander yet yielded not to Fate, but 
struck again and again with the old, fierce skill — all this, as well as 
the unsparing story of the ill-starred battle of Five Forks, will, I 
trust, be one day recounted to us by some comrade in memorable 
detail. 

On the evening of April 1st, the battle of Five Forks was fought, 
and lost to the Confederates, and at dawn next morning, from Ap- 
pomattox to Hatcher's Run, the Federal assaults began. Lee was 
forced back from the whole line covering the Boydton Plank Road, 
and Gibbon's division of Ord's corps boldly essayed to break 
through into the town. The way was barred by an open work of 
heavy profile, known as "Battery Gregg," garrisoned by a mixed force 

* General John C. Breclcinridge was created Secretary of War on February 5th, 1S65, and 
at once placed General I. M. St. John at the head of the Commissary Department. In a let- 
ter, now in my possession, written by General Breckinridge, he says : " General St. John'3 
conduct of the department was so satisfactory, that a few weeks afterwards I received a let- 
ter from General Lee, in which he said that his army had not been so well supplied for many 
months." 

t Statement of Lieutenant-General John B. Gordon. 



47 

of infantry, chiefly North Carolinians of Lane's brigade, and a score 
of artillerymen, in all 250 men. Thrice Gibbon's columns, above 
5,000 strong, surged against the devoted outpost — thrice they recoil- 
ed, but about noon a fourth assault was ordered, and the assailants, 
rushing in, front and rear, discovered with surprise and admiration 
that of these two hundred and fifty brave men, two hundred and 
twenty had been struck down, yet were the wounded loading and 
passing up their muskets to the thirty unhurt and invincible vete- 
rans, who, with no thought of surrender, still maintained a biting 
fire from the front. A splendid feat of arms, which taught pru- 
dence to the too eager enemy for the remainder of the day, for 
nearly six hundred of Gibbon's men lay dead and stricken in front 
of the work, and the most daring of the assailants recognized that 
an army of such metal would not easily yield the inner lines.* 

ON THAT NIGHT PETERSBURG WAS EVACUATED. 

But though time admonishes me to pass over in such brief fashion 
these last eventful days, duty bids me pause to make mention of 
two, who, everywhere conspicuous in the defence, yielded up their 
lives at the end. 

One, high in rank, had been trained to the profession of arms, 
and at the very outbreak of hostilities offered to his native State a 
sword already forged to an heroic temper by tire of battle. 

Endowed by nature with commanding resolution and marvel- 
ous energy, his "forward spirit" ever "lifted him where most 
trade of danger ranged," and from that thrice glorious day when, 
leading in at Mechanicsville his superb "light division" with all 
the fire of youth and skill of age, he dislodged McClellan's right 
flank on the upper Chickhominy, even to this memorable April 
morning, when, riding with a single courier far in advance of his 
men, he sought to restore his broken lines at Petersburg — his every 
utterance and action was informed by the lofty spirit of a jDatriot, 
by the firmness and address of a valiant soldier. 

*The detachment from Lane's brigade was commanded by Lieutenant George H. Snow, 
33cl North Carolina. There were also in the fort some supernumerary artillerymen, armed 
as infantry, a section of Chew's Maryland battery, and small detachments from Harris' Mis- 
sissippi brigade (under Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan), and from Thomas' Georgia brigade 
(under Captain William Norwood). The error of attributing this brilliant defence to Harris' 
brigade alone, doubtless arose from Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan of that brigade being the 
ranking officer in the fort. The incident of the wounded men loading and passing up the 
muskets to their comrades, is attested by officers In the fort, but I learn from General Lane's 
MS. Report that, the ammunition giving out, the men used rocks with great effect. General 
Lane's report should by all means be published. 



48 

Much he suffered during this last campaign from a grievous 
malady, yet the vigor of his soul disdained to consider the weak- 
ness of his body, and accepting without a murmur the privations 
of that terrible winter, he remained steadfast to his duty until the 
fatal bullet stilled the beatings of a noble heart which had so often 
throbbed responsive to the music of victory. 

No more splendid monument, no nobler epitaph, than of that 
Latour d'Avergne, " the first grenadier of France," to whose name 
every morning at roll-call in the French army, answer was made, 
as the front-rank man on right of his old company stepped forward 
and saluted: Mort sur le champ de bataille — "dead upon the field of 
battle." Such monument, such epitaph, at least, is that of 

A. p. HILL, 

and the men of his old corps remember with sorrowful pride that 
his name lingered last upon the dying lips of Lee and of Jackson,* 

Of the other, who fell but the evening before at Five Forks, I 
almost fear to speak, lest I should do hurt to that memory which I 
would honor. For to those who knew him not, the simplest out- 
line of a character so finely tempered by stern and gentle virtues, 
would seem but an ideal picture touched with the tender exaggera- 
tion of retrospective grief; while to so many of you who knew 
him as he was — the gentle comrade and the brilliant fighter — any 
portrait must prove, at best, but a blurred semblance of the young 
soldier, whose simple, heroic, godly life rejects, as it were, all hu- 
man panegyric. Yet even the coldest must allow that it was a life 
which afforded a notable example of how great a career may be 
crowded within the compass of few years. In the spring of '61, 
a youth of modest demeanor, he entered the military service as a 
private soldier — in the spring of '65, still a mere lad, he fell in 
action. Colonel of Artillery, mourned by an army. 

More than once in desperate and critical events were grave trusts 
confided to his prudence, skill and courage; more than once did 
he win emphatic praise from Hill, from Jackson, and from Lee. 
Thus, it Avas his lot to be tried in great events, and his fortune to be 
equal to the trial, and having filled the measure of perfect knight- 
hood, "chaste in his thoughts, modest in his words, liberal and 

*"Tell Hill he must come up." — Colonel Wm. Preston Johnston's account of Lee's last 
moments — Rev. J. Wm. Jones' Personal Reminiscences of General M. E. Lee, p. 451. 
"A. P. Hill, prepare for action."— Dab/wi/'s Life of Jackson, p. 719. 



49 

valiant in deeds," there was at last accorded him on field-of-battle 
the death counted "sweet and honorable." 
Such was 

WILLIAM JOHNSON PEGRAM, 

of the Third corps, who, at the early age of twenty-two, died sword 
in hand at the head of his men, with all his "honor-owing 
wounds" in front "to make a soldier's passage for his soul." 

On Sunday night, April 2d, the lines of Petersburg and Rich- 
mond were, as I have said, evacuated, and the Army of Northern 
Virginia passed out in retreat. Thus were yielded at the last forty 
miles of entrenchments guarded by less than 40,000 men,* yet held 
during ten months of ceaseless vigil and fevered famine with such 
grim tenacity, as has made it hard for the brave of every nation to 
determine whether to accord their sorrowful admiration more to 
the stern prowess of the simple soldier, or to the matchless readi- 
ness of a leader who by the fervor of his genius developed from 
slender resources such amazing power. 

With the abandonment of these lines ends the task confided to 
me, comrades, by your generous partiality. Already have you lis- 
tened to the story of the "Retreat" from the Hps of a soldier who 
bore an honorable part in the disastrous week which culminated in 
the surrender at Appomattox— a day which marked, indeed, the 
wreck of a nation, yet which may be recalled with no blush of 
shame by the men who there sadly furled those tattered colors em- 
blazoned with the names of Manassas and Fredericksburg, of Chan- 
cellorsville and Cold Harbor— who there returned a park of black- 
ened guns wrested from the victors at Gaines' Mill and Frazer's 
Farm, at Second Manassas and Harper's Ferry, at the Wilderness 
and Reams' Station, at Appomattox Courthouse itself on that very morn- 
^^^_who there, in the presence of above 140,000 of their adversa- 
ries, stacked 8,000 of those "bright muskets" which for more than 
four years had "borne upon their bayonets" the mightiest Revolt 
in history. 

Nor shall those men ever forget the generous bearing of the vic- 



* In field returns for February, 1865, the number given is 59,094 for Department of Northern 
Virt-inia, but as General Early very pertinently remarks, this "afforJs no just criterion of 
the real strength of that army, as those returns included the forces in the Valley and other 
outlyino- commands not available for duty on the \mQs:'-Southern Historical Society Papers, 
July 18T6, p. 19. General Lee himself says: "At the time of withdrawing from the Imes 
around Richmond and Petersburg, the number of troops amounted to about thirty-five thou- 
sand."-I-etfcr to General William S. Smith, July 2Tth, 1868, Reviiniscences of General Lee, p. 
26S. 



50 

torious host, which even in that supreme moment of triumph re- 
membered that this gaunt remnant were the survivors of an army 
which but two years before had dealt them such staggering blows 
that there were more deserters from the Army of the Potomac than 
there were men for duty in the Army of Northern Virginia* — that 
they were the survivors of that army which, from the Wilderness 
to Cold Harbor, had put liors du combat more men than Lee had 
carried into the campaign; which, from Cold Harbor to Five Forks, 
had again put ho7's du combat as great a number as was left him for the 
defence of Petersburg.'^ Surely, it is meet that, with each recurring 
year, the survivors of such an army should gather themselves to- 
gether to hear and know the truth. Thus shall the decorum of 
history be preserved and error be not perpetuated. 

It is a duty, comrades, which we owe to ourselves, which we owe 
to our children, which we owe to our leader, whose fame shall shine 
with added lustre when the true nature of his difficulties shall be 
laid bare — when it shall be made clear to all, to what measure Lee 
the Soldier stood in the shade of powers to which Lee the Patriot 
rendered patriotic obedience. Yet of this are we sure, that it is 
a fame which malice cannot touch, which florid panegyric cannot 
injure — a fame which may well await the verdict of that time of 
which his ablest critic speaks with such prophetic confidence: 
" When History, with clear voice, shall recount the deeds done on 
either side, and the citizens of the whole Union do justice to the 
memories of the dead and place above all others the name of him, 
who, in strategy mighty, in battle terrible, in adversity as in pros- 
perity a hero indeed, with the simple devotion to duty, and the 
rare purity of the ideal Christian knight, joined all the kingly quali- 
ties of a leader of men." 

Above all, it is duty, which we owe those dauntless spirits who 
preferred death in resistance to safety in submission. 

"For a little while," says Dr. Draper, the Union historian, "those 
who have been disappointed clamor, then objurgation subsides into 

* " At the moment I was placed in command (26th January, 1863), I caused a return to be 
made of the absentees of the army, and found the number to be 2,922 commissioned officers 
and 81,964 non-commissioned officers and privates. The desertions were at the rate of about 
200 a day."— Testimony of Major-General Joseph Hooker before the Congressional Commit- 
tee, March 11th, 1865, Report on the Conduct of the War, vol. i, p. 112. The field returns for 
month of January, 1863, give 72,226 men "for duty" in the whole Department of Northern 
Virginia. 

t This statement is the result of careful calculations of Federal losses, based entirely on 
figures given by Swinton and other Northern historians. 



51 

murmurs, and murmurs sink into souvenirs, and souvenirs end in 
oblivion." 

But no — 

Time cannot teach forgetfiilness 
When grief's full heart is fed by fame. 

Here in this battle-crowned capital of our' ancient Common- 
wealth, shall "the men who wore the gray" yearly gather and re- 
call the names of those who went forth to battle at the bidding of 
Virginia — who now lie sleeping on the bosom of this Mother, that, 
not unmindful of their valor, not ungrateful for this filial devo- 
tion, shall keep forever bright the splendor of their deeds, " till 
earth, and seas, and skies are rended." 

No " Painted Porch" is hers, like that of Athens, where, for half 
a thousand years, the descendants of the men who had followed 
Miltiades to victory might trace the glories of their Marathon — no 
gleaming Chapelle des Invalides, with the light flaming through 
gorgeous windows on tattered flags of battle — no grand historic 
Abbey, like that of England, where hard by the last resting place 
of her princes and her kings sleep the great soldiers who have writ 
glorious names high upon their country's roll with the point of 
their stainless swords. 

Nay, none of this is hers. 

Only the frosty stars to-night keep solemn watch and ward above 
the wind-swept graves of those who, from Potomac to James, from 
Rapidan to Appomattox, yielded up their lives that they might 
transmit to their children the heritage of their fathers. 

Weep on, Virginia, weep these lives given to thy cause in vain ; 
The stalwart sons who ne'er shall heed thy trumpet-call again ; 

The homes whose light is quenched for aye ; the graves without a stone ; 
The folded flag, the broken sword, the hope forever flown. 

Yet raise thy head, fair land ! thy dead died bravely for tlie Right ; 
The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is briglit ; 
No blot is on thy record found, no treason soils thy fame, 
Nor can disaster ever dim the lustre of tliy name.* 

Pondering in her heart all their deeds and words, Virginia calls us, 
her surviving sons, " from weak regrets and womanish laments to 
the contemplation of their virtues," bidding us, in the noble words 

* These lines are slightly altered from the noble poem entitled "The Ninth of April, 1865," 
by Percy Greg— Interleaves in the Workday Prose of Twenty IVncs— London, 1ST5. 

4 



o2 

of Tacitus, to "honor them not so much with transitory praises as 
with our reverence, and, if our powers permit us, with our emuhi- 
tion." 

Reminding her children, who were faithful to her in war, that 
" the reward of one duty is the jDOwer to fulfill another," she points 
to the tasks left unfinished when the " nerveless hands drooped over 
the spotless shields," and with imperious love claims a fealty no 
less devoted in these days of peace. 

I claim no vision of seer or prophet, yet I fancy that even now I 
descry the faint dawn of that day, which thousands wait on with 
expectant eyes ; when all this land, still the fairest on the globe — 
this land, which has known so long what old Isaiah termed the 
"dimness of anguish " — shall grow glad again in the broad sun- 
light of prosperity, and from Alleghany to Chesapeake shall re- 
sound the hum and stir of busy life ; when yonder noble roadstead, 
where our iron-clad "Virginia" revolutionized the naval tactics of 
two continents, shall be whitened by many a foreign sail, and you, 
her children, shall tunnel those grand and hoary mountains, whose 
every pass Lee and " old Stonewall " have made forever historic by 
matchless skill and daring. Thus, comrades, assured of her heroic 
Past, stirred by a great hope for her Future, may we to-night re- 
echo the cry of Richmond on Bosworth field: 

" Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again ; 
Tliat she niaj' long live here, God say amen !" 



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